Bhubaneswar (Odisha) : In order to harness the fishing opportunities in the state, a first-of-its-kind fishery university for Odisha will soon come up here to encourage modern techniques of fishing and improve the state’s contribution in fish production.
Fisheries and Animal Resource Development Secretary Bishnupada Sethi, at a Secretariat meeting presided by Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, said the university would create a technical and scientific network connecting individual farmers, organizations and institutes.
The proposed university would cater to necessary skill development of fishermen community through professional courses, creating technical manpower and skilling the farmers through direct exposure and designing the best practices. Development Commissioner R. Balakrishnan said that the varsity should be developed as a state of the art university linking directly the farmers.
Padhi asked the fisheries department to focus on short and medium term strategies for increasing the farmer’s source of income. He said at present, the state contributes about 5 percent of the fish production in the country and about 17 percent of the value of Indian maritime product export.
Odisha has 480 km coastline along with 24,000 square km area within continental shelf. Freshwater resources are estimated at 6.79 hectare acres comprising of 1.28 lakh hectare acres of ponds, 2 lakh hectare acres of reservoirs, 1.80 lakh hectare acres of lakes, swamps and 1.71 lakh hectare acres of rivers and canals. Brackish water resources are around 4.18 lakh hectare acres.
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