OREANDA-NEWS. Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Radha Mohan Singh has inaugurated the 5 days training programme on “Ornamental Fish Culture and Management for Livelihood Improvement of Rural Women” at ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna. While addressing the participants, Shri Singh said that a training centre on ornamental fish culture and production has been established recently at ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna for imparting training to rural women for their empowerment through ornamental fish farming.

Shri Singh said that the ornamental fish farming programme for livelihood improvement of fisher women and other poor women in the state has not been given any impact. This plan was formulated in 2010 for implementation from 2011-12 for five years. However, the plan has not been initiated so far. The aim of this programme was to improve the economic condition of rural women through self employment and for this it was decided to provide Rs. 1.0 lakh per woman for establishment of one unit. It was decided that the financial help would be provided by National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) and a sum of Rs. 50,000/-, i.e., 50% of total cost would be given to each trained woman. However, due to non-implementation of the programme, the state has been deprived of the financial assistance by the NFDB.

Now the Central Government has established the training centre on ornamental fish culture and management at Patna, which will help the farmers of Bihar to get trained in the state itself.