Working Group Report on - Haryana Kisan Ayog

1.0 INTRODUCTIONFisheries and aquaculture, directly and indirectly, play an essential role in earningthe livelihoods for millions of people-almost 540 million people, or nearly 8 percentof the world population. Indian fisheries with production of 8 million tonnes (2009-10) occupies second position globally with overall annual growth rate of 4.7% and6.2% growth in inland sector, thereby contributing 1.1% to total GDP and 5.3% toagricultural GDP. The sector engages 14 million people across the country and earnsmore than Rs.10,000 crores annually through exports.Haryana is primarily an agrarian land locked State with 75% of its populationengaged in agriculture and allied activities. Its land resources, which one graduallydeclining, are the most important and scarce resource. It is characterized by arid andsemi-arid climatic condition with scanty average rain fall (455 mm/year), highseepage and evaporation rate. With the total seasonal/long seasonal water area ofmere 85,900 ha constituting only 2% of the total geographical area of the State, fishculture would only seem rather a difficult proposition at first. Besides, the fact thatHaryana has a culturally predominant vegetarian population further has made fishfarming one of the least preferred occupational choice. This is attested by the factthat, unlike other States, Haryana has no traditional fishing communities whoderive their livelihood primarily from fishing.However, as the saying goes, money has neither colour nor creed. The economicviability and profitability were the prime factors that motivated a few enterprisingfarmers to adopt fish culture in early 1980s, though it was a struggle convincingthem during initial years. Considering this, fisheries development has madesignificant progress in the last three decades, feeding mainly the Delhi market. At thetime of creation of Haryana in 1966, only 58 hectare of village ponds were underfish culture while total fish production was 600 tonnes, while India’s inlandproduction was 5 lakh tonnes. Fish production shot up to 23,200 tonnes by 1990,33,040 tonnes by 2000 and nearly 1 lakh tonnes by 2010, more than 4 times duringthe last two decades constituting 2.1% of India’s inland fish production, which is nomean achievement considering that the overall Indian inland production grew only( 1 )