Shrimp culture

Department of Fisheries, Government of Punjab has taken courageous initiative of Shrimp culture in inland saline affected areas of Punjab.

After few years of successful trial under technical guidance and support of ICAR-CIFE, Rohtak: Regional center and GADVASU, Department of Fisheries (DoF), Punjab made an attempt of diffusion of technology among the farmers.

With persistent dedication and determination, the Department of Fisheries motivated farmers of Mansa, Bathinda, Sri Muktsar Sahib, Fazilka, Ferozepur and Faridkot districts to start shrimp culture on commercial scale. This has shown significant signs of entrepreneurship development.

Benefits

During the FY 2019-20, 750 MT of shrimp was produced from 164 ha. of ponds. The department has also accorded financial assistance to the farmers along with technical hand holding support, which is facilitating farmers to generate income form unutilized saline affected areas. Farmers are harvesting 2 crops/year of shrimp between March-November, which can be scaled up with further refinement of technology.

Supporting structures

The department of fisheries has established well equipped demonstration farm cum training center (DFTC) for shrimp culture at Sri Muktsar in 6 ha of land. DFTC has 4.8 ha of shrimp farm supported by facilities like office, lab, feed mill, store room, training hall, toilet & staff quarters.

State Fisheries Department has constituted a society with a vision of promotion of Shrimp culture in Punjab along with addressing and mitigating challenges related to forward and backward linkages.

Development of shrimp culture in Punjab publicized growth of cluster-based culture system which is alleviating farming related issues starting from input supply to marketing, thus showing the probability of development of postharvest facilities in future.

Conclusion

Shrimp culture has proved to be game changer in Punjab. Many of the farmers have come out of debt trap and shrimp culture has provided them surplus income and farmers income has doubled through adoption of shrimp culture technology. Being in premature stage, shrimp culture holds a great potential in the state and can address the employment concerns along with socioeconomic upliftment of the under-privileged families.

For more details contact 

Director and Warden of Fisheries

Livestock Complex, Sector-68, SAS Nagar (Punjab)

Phone No. 0172-2217135; Email Id: dwfpunjab@gmail.com