Fishermen decry discrepancies
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, May 09 2015 :
Fishery Department has been accused of committing many discrepancies while executing contract work of digging fish farms/ponds at Naorem Uttrapat local within Nambol Assembly segment in Bishnupur district.
A team of media persons were shown the newly dug fish ponds by some members of the Uttrapat Fishing Cum Pisciculture Cooperative Society Limited led by their chairman Chongtham Temba today.
Temba said that the society has around 30 hectares of fish farms at Uttrapat and the members have been using these farms in pisciculture, cultivation of foxnuts (Thangjing) and associated activities.
Then all of a sudden, fish ponds were dug using heavy machinery in February-March last year.
The digging work was repeated during the same months this year too.
On enquiry by the society, it was learnt that six fish ponds covering four hectares and another two ponds covering 3.50 hectares each were dug by Fishery Department through contractor(s), Temba said.
But the newly dug ponds do not reach the recommended depth of 15 feet and the width of their ring bunds is also far from satisfactory.
Rearing fishes in these ponds would entail loss of capital rather than earning any profit.
As the depth of the newly dug ponds is just around 5 to 10 feet, water would overflow during rainy season and the ring bunds would not be able to hold back flood water.
Even as the society approached the Fishery Director seeking details of the project such as the total sanctioned amount, width of ring bundss, depth of ponds and other components, if there is any, no response has been received till date.
The 10 years lease signed between the society and Fishery Department would expire in 2017, Temba said while appealing to the department concerned to rectify the discrepancies at the earliest.