THE disappearance of hundreds of fishing ponds and lakes during the last couple of decades has affected the production of inland fish in Punjab.

The provincial government now plans to introduce initiatives to promote aquaculture, attract investment in the fisheries sector and improve economy of the people associated with the business.

Though the share of fish farming in GDP is 0.41 per cent, it has a value addition in export earnings.

During the first nine months of the previous fiscal year (ie July-March 2016-17), total marine and inland fish production was estimated at 520,000 million tonnes, of which 375,000m tonnes came from marine fisheriesand the remainder from inland waters.

The Punjab government is working on a new package of incentives for setting up new fish farms and improving the existing ones in an attempt to check the decline in fish production and provide the masses with a cheap option of obtaining protein in the form of fish meat, says Iftikhar Ahmad Qureshi, directorgeneral of the provincial fisheries department.

A proposal has been forwarded to budgetmakers for offering around Rs100,000 to Rs150,000 per acre to landowners who are ready to set up fish farms, he says. The existing fish farmers utilising conventional techniques are also being offered recirculation pumps for improving water quality through aerators that maintain a certain level of oxygen in water.

Under another initiative, the fisheries department is giving solar pumps on a matching-grant basis to those associated with the business for the last five years and own between five and 15 acres. The project is aimed at reducing the production cost of fish farmers, Mr Qureshi says.

Likewise, the department has also offered3,000 genetically improved fish seed free of cost per hatchery to owners of private fish hatcheries for preparing broodstock under the Kisan package announced by the government in the previous financial year.

Efforts are being made the world over to tap development opportunities in areas where agriculture activities have become difficult, ifnot impossible, because of salinity or brackish groundwater agriculture.

Since the 1960s, zoology experts have been developing fish species that could nourish in the saline and brackish water.

These endeavours are being replicated in Punjab where vast tracts in certain districts are lying barren for want of sweet water or because of salinity and brackish water. These areas include Muzaffargarh, Taunsa Sharif, Faisalabad and Sargodha.

Anser Mahmood Chatta, deputy director at the Punjab fisheries department, says efforts are being made to develop fisheries in saline and brackish water, particularly in south Punjab.

`The selected areas have been thoroughly surveyed, their soil and subsoil water tested and analysed in the department`s laboratories to identify the nature and quantity of various salts in it,` he says. `Experts have concluded that the genetically improved farmed tilapia fish species is the best for culture.

Unlike in the case of local species, the culture of tilapia can be expanded utilising brackish water for fish production on a commercial scale.

The species belongs to the Nile, he says, adding that it was first introduced in Pakistan in the late 1970s and cultivation started in the 1990s after some genetic improvement.

With the help of a programme funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, the tilapia fish production has been boosted up to 5,000 fish per acre with the help of soyabased floating feed.

`Keeping in view the constraints that have hurt the plans for shrimp farming along the Sindh coast, we are developing a hatchery in Muzaffargarh to ensure uninterrupted supply of seed to fish farmers. Besides, training programmes are being arranged for interested entrepreneurs,` Mr Chatta says.

The department is also planning mass awareness campaigns to promote fish consumption culture and create local market for fish farmers. The campaign is also aimed at breaking the myth that fish must not be consumed in the months whose names don`t contain letter `R`, ie May, June, July and August.

The official says that the myth had been created by the department itself back in the 1970s and 80s to prevent the people from eating fish during the breeding season because then it could not have developed hatcheries to meet local needs for fish seed. •