December 4, 2014 — After a two-hour discussion, the Assembly on Wednesday referred a Bill to invigorate inland fisheries to its Subject Committee.
The Kerala Fish Seed Bill, 2014, which went to the panel for honing, seeks to bring in “an integrated planning, monitoring and management mechanism” for ensuring supply of quality fish seed to inland fish farmers — the supply spurring growth in demand, spread of inland fish farming to more areas in the State, and thus growth in production, Fisheries Minister K. Babu said, piloting the Bill.
He said the State had nearly four lakh hectares of inland water-spread consisting rivers, lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, and ponds.
Hardly 25 per cent of this supported fisheries activities now and one constraint was the difficulty in accessing fish seed for cultivation.
Some quantity came from other States, but there was no system here to ensure that the hatcheries in the State and those located outside the State supplying fish seed to the farmers here were supplying seeds of good and safe quality.
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