Kathua, Apr 18 (ANI): Community fishing in traditional ponds in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua District encourages fishing culture and also fulfils the demand of locals on economical rates.
Locals said they started keeping fishes in the pond seven-eight year back but they started auctioning fishes for the last three-four years, when they realised that the fishes started dying in the summer season.
"We are doing this community fishing since last seven-eight years. Earlier we used to think that fishes should be kept, as pets and fishing should not be allowed because people used to feed them and children used to love these fishes and play with them. But as we saw that fishes used to die in the summer season, then we thought of auctioning them," said Shiv Ram.
There are nearly 100 traditional community ponds in Kathua and most of them are used for fishing. The Village development committees are also renovating the rest of the traditional ponds.
The fisheries department is also providing help to the locals by putting the Fingerlings (Fish seeds) in these community ponds free of cost and also imparting training to villagers for better care of the fishes.
"We are giving a lot of attention to the fishing in the community ponds to encourage the locals. Presently, we have more than 100 ponds in which few are seasonal and the others are perennial. In the last financial year of 2010-2011, we have constructed 62 more ponds to encourage community fishing," said Gopal Krishan, Assistant Director, Fisheries department, Kathua.
Locals are earning handsome income of Rs 50,000 to 1,50,000 by selling the fishes every year. (ANI)
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