Minister for Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Talasani Srinivas Yadav today directed that the officials take precautionary measures while purchasing fish seed for cultivation and conduct wide campaign on fisheries production in lakes and reservoirs.
The minister held a review meeting at Secretariat on fish procurement, leaving into lakes and reservoirs and cultivation. The officials should prepare guidelines and take steps to follow stipulated norms to purchase and drop the fish seed into the lakes and reservoirs as per the plan. Srinivas Yadav sought that extra care was needed to check the problem of agents and traders becoming a syndicate to loot and make sure that only the fish following norms be purchased for the cultivation, he said.
The Collectors should be instructed through letters to make sure that the fish seed procurement is done as per set norms. Take steps for cultivation by dropping the fish seed into the selected lakes, water bodies and ponds. As fisheries wing lacks staff, the officials can use the services of staff of Revenue and Panchayat Raj departments, he said.
The minister said the State government was giving top priority for the fish program to help the fishermen community to grow financially, he said. Since the fishermen are facing financial problems, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has launched the scheme to supply and drop fish seed with 100 per cent of subsidy. The government also taking up marketing of the fish and enable the fishermen get better price avoiding middlemen. He asked the officials to remain strict to ensure that the benefits reach the eligible as the government is spending crores of rupees for welfare programs in the state, he said. Special chief secretary Suresh Chanda, Commissioner Suvarna and others were present. (NSS