Meghalaya Government in its effort to revive the declining population of the local fish species has sent proposals to the centre for the creation of eight new fish sanctuaries. Minister in charge of Fisheries Alexander Laloo Hek on Monday said these will be done in revenue models in various rivers across the state.
“We have sent the proposals for creation of eight (fish) sanctuaries in the entire state, in these nice and beautiful rivers we are going to create sanctuaries in the revenue model to attract tourism at the same time,” Hek told reporters.
The Minister also informed, “We have given a proposal to the Fishery department and the same proposal is also given to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.”
Stating that 80 percent of the fish comes from outside the state, the Minister in charge of Fisheries said, “We have a deficiency of 80 percent of the fish coming from outside, I will put all my efforts to see that we will be self-sufficient in fish production.”
The Minister further stated that fish sanctuaries will help in attracting tourists as the Government plans to open eco-tourism cum fish sanctuaries.
“We look forward to also undertake the various tourism activities like rafting, Angling, boating and we can also have restaurants, and this will help in making these sanctuaries a place for tourism and help in generating revenue,” the Minister said.
The natural river systems were slowly running out of fishes due to less-than-careful utilisation of rivers and its resources. To control this problem, the state government’s Department of Fisheries came up with a number of measures. Fish sanctuary is one of those measures.
Interestingly, Meghalaya has 79 fish sanctuaries that support a wide variety of fishes, including the chocolate mahseer and the golden mahseer.
He further informed that at Fish Dale, the state Government plans to set up an Aquatic Knowledge centre, beside having a beautiful aquarium.
“The knowledge centre where the students, individuals and the families, the tourists can go and see and learn,” Hek said.
Conservation efforts received a push in 2012 by the state aquaculture mission under the fisheries department.
Asked if the state aquaculture mission was a failure, he said, “I don’t consider this as a failure, it is a continuous process, the work is still in progress.”
Establishment of fish sanctuary aims at Conservation of indigenous aquatic fauna through establishment of pocket fish Sanctuary.