Villagers earn livelihood from fish farming in closed CCL mines in Jharkhand

The fishery department installed a cage at an estimated cost of Rs 3 lakh in an abandoned coal pit full of water and provided various species of small fish free of cost, Mahto said.He said they have made a little investment in feeding the fish.

Many educated unemployed youths of Ramgarh district are earning their livelihood from fish farming in an abandoned mine of Central Coalfields Limited (CCL).

The youths belonging to displaced families under the Kuju area of CCL started fish farming by forming a cooperative society after they came in contact with Fishery department officials.

Shashikant Mahto (28), a graduate, formed a village cooperative society along with other educated youths of Ara village under Mandu block of Ramgarh district and approached the Fishery department for help to start fish farming in an abandoned coal pit of Kuju area of the CCL mine near their village.

''We are thankful to the district Fishery department for supporting us that made our dream come true. The fishery department installed a cage at an estimated cost of Rs 3 lakh in an abandoned coal pit full of water and provided various species of small fish free of cost,'' Mahto said.

He said they have made a little investment in feeding the fish. It was difficult to invest approximately Rs 5000 per day in fish feeding. Hence, an innovative idea to reduce feeding cost has been implemented to increase profitability, Mahto said. He said that once they saw that little fishes out of the cage are eating green grass found in the water. So they have started feeding the fishes in cage green grass.

Bhushan Prasad, another villager said that they observed that green grass is good fish food, and the growth rate of fish in the cage also increased.

Village youth now produce nearly 30 tonnes of fish in a season and they earn nearly Rs 15 to 20 lakh while feeding cost for 1 kg fish was around Rs 35 to Rs 40 as per the calculation of state Fishery department but the innovative idea of village youths has reduced it by 50 percent, said a Fishery department official.

Manoj Kumar, District fishery officer, Ramgarh said that his department was impressed with the innovative idea of the youths to make feeding cost less.

Kumar said his department has a proposal to install six to seven new cages in abandoned mines near Ara village.

Nearly 100 abandoned coal mines of CCL are lying useless in Ramgarh district that could employ nearly 5,000 people, said a villager.

Village youths are supplying fish to the state capital, Ranchi, Sasaram, and Gaya in Bihar, said Murthi Devi, a housewife associated with the cooperative society.

Each youth associated with the society now is earning Rs 20,000 to 30,000 per month and now they want more cages to be installed, said a villager.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)