The State Government has come out with a new policy to promote cage fish culture in medium and large reservoirs.

The Fisheries and Animal Resources Department has invited expression of interests (EOI) from interested farmers and entrepreneurs for availing long-term lease for five years extendable to a maximum of another five years in the subzones of the Hirakud reservoir.

Utilising a modest fraction (1%) of the surface area, the large and medium reservoirs can contribute to a substantial quantity of fish production in the State, an official said.

Cage culture fisheries have a huge potential for increasing the fish production, he said, adding that it is often considered as the future of reservoir fisheries and also to promote entrepreneurship in aquaculture and create job opportunities.

“The cages are enclosed spaces to rear fish enclosed on all sides with net walls except for leaving an opening at the top for feeding and handling the fish stock,” the official said.

The cages are of many shapes like circular, square or rectangular and are equally good from the production point of view and their choice is mainly based on consideration such as fish species to be framed, endurance, cost, availability of materials, convenience in assembling and transporting the components.

In the first phase, cage culture would be promoted in five zones and 100 subzones of the Hirakud reservoir which can be leased out to primary fishery cooperative societies, entrepreneurs or companies. Each subzone has a cage surface area of 600 square meters and can accommodate a maximum of 24 rectangular cages of 6-meter length x 4 m width x 4 m depth dimension or three circular cages of 16 m diameter. In a rectangular cage, around 3,000 kg of fish can be harvested.

Various fish species like katla, rohu, mrigal, amur carp, pangasius, asian seabass/barramundi, pearl spot, butter catfish would be used for cage culture. The cage culture guidelines have strict conditions for maintaining water quality, cage maintenance, fish health monitoring.

The State already has vast freshwater resources extending around 6.84 lakh hectares. During 2019-20, the State produced around 8.16 lakh metric tonnes of fish.