APART to popularize freshwater prawn culture in Assam

GUWAHATI: Under the World-Bank aided, Assam Agri-Business and Rural Transformation Project (APART), the Department of Fisheries, Assam has started freshwater prawn polyculture demonstrations with the technical support of WorldFish, Malaysia to be taken up in 80 beneficiary ponds covering 21.54 hectare in three districts, namely Kamrup (M), Nalbari and Goalpara. The Minister of Fisheries, Government of Assam Parimal Suklabaidya, formally released the prawn seeds and distributed inputs during the function held Bagibari Village in Dimoria Development Block, Kamrup (M). Addressing the gathering, the Minister explained that the net annual profit from 2.0 bigha carp polyculture is Rs 1.30 lakh, where the expected annual profit of polyculture of freshwater prawns with carps is about Rs 1.80 lakh, where the additional profit by stocking freshwater prawns in 2.0 bigha water area is about Rs 0.50 lakh. Freshwater prawn farming is an environmental friendly aquaculture farming system and State's agro-climatic condition is suitable for freshwater prawn production. Carp-prawn farming will flourish in a big way and will boost the confidence of the rural youths, mainly the migrated labours due to COVID pandemic for coming forward in freshwater prawn-fish polyculture system, the Minister added.

Carp-prawn polyculture is practised based on the principle that the food materials available in the water body are fully utilized, waste is minimized and profit per unit area is increased. In this practice, the culture of prawns is done along with fishes in the ponds. The freshwater prawn has a very high market value, is preferred by consumers in Assam besides having good export potential.

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