CIFRI Awards
The ICAR-CIFRI has organized a one-day awareness program on ‘Disease surveillance and health management of fish’ at East Kolkata Wetland, West Bengal on 10th October 2023 under the supervision of Director, ICAR-CIFRI, Dr. B.K. Das. The East Kolkata floodplain wetland situated in the lower Bhagirathi basin and bounded by latitude 22˚25’N to 22˚40’N and longitudes 88˚20’E to 88˚35’E lies between two rivers, i.e., Hooghly River in the northwest and Bidyadhari in the east. These wetlands act as a natural wastewater treatment plant and reuse/treat about 800 million liters of wastewater from Kolkata daily. Apart from providing multiple benefits including agriculture food production, resource recovery, flood reduction, habitat and biodiversity restoration, fish cultivation is a significant activity in these wetlands comprised of more than 154 big fisheries or bheries. A total of 40 fishers including 29 men and 11 women participated in the program.
During the program, the team shared and enlightened the gathering on several areas of disease surveillance and health management of fish including aquatic environment vis-à-vis antimicrobial resistance issues, the status of fish disease management in freshwater aquaculture in India, sustainable approaches for aquaculture development, etc. While addressing the gathering, the team motivated the fishers on the fish culture and informed them about the beneficial impact of different fish culture methods, e.g., pen culture for production enhancement from the wetland. The farmers were also sensitized about recent viral diseases, e.g., Tilapia lake virus and Parvovirus, causing severe infection and mortality in Oreochromis niloticus. The scientific team also interacted with fishers and discussed fish growth, disease and farm management issues.
