Fish fair: Indigenous fishes to be main draw
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, October 29 2008: As in previous years, State Fisheries Department is all set to organise the Fish Fair cum Fish Crop Competition in connection with Ningol Chakkouba festival at Pologround here tomorrow.

The Fish Fair would be opened at 12.30 pm tomorrow by Fisheries Minister Md Allauddin as chief guest.

The main attraction of this year's Fish Fair is expected to be indigenous fish products and the Department has given special emphasis on production of indigenous fishes to encourage the fish farmers in this regard.

Indigenous fish Pengba, to be the main draw at the fair

The total quantity of fish production being targeted by the Department in the fair this year is around 46,400 kilogram, though the actual requirement of fish in the State is around 60,000 kilogram.

The Department would fix the price of the fishes to be sold in the fair and would provide the transportation charge to the fish farmers for bringing their products from their respective farm locations to the fair venue.

The price of the fishes to be sold in the fair as fixed by the Department is Rs 90 per kg for Rou, Catla and Mirgal, Rs 80 per kg for Common Carp, Grass Carp and Koory and Rs 50 per kg for Silver Carp among the Indian Major Carps.

Among the major indigenous fishes, the rate per kg are respectively Rs 300 and Rs 250 for Pengba and Ngaton respectively.

For the price of other remaining indigenous fishes like, Ngakra, Porong and Ngamu, it would not come under the purview of the rate fixed by the Department and it would depend on the agreement between the buyer and the seller.

In the last fish fair, the Department had kept the target of producing 46,000 kilogram of fish.

However, surpassing the target, a total of 56,104 kilogram had been able to produced.

This year, the target of the Department is to produce 46,400 kilogram.

Out of this, indigenous fish varieties is to comprise more than half the total quantity.

The Department is keeping the target of producing 15,000 kilogram of Pengba, 5,000 kilogram of Pengba and 10,000 kilogram of other varieties.

To encourage production of indigenous fishes, the Department has announced Rs 15,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 7,000 respective as reward to the first three fish farmers who produced the highest quantity.

In all 60 stalls would be participating in the fish fair this year.

The Department would also be using a refrigerator van of the capacity of 5 tonne to help the farmers in ensuring that their fish production from being rotten.