Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ramesh Dhawala said that there was immense scope for generating employment avenues in fisheries sector and asked the officers to motivate unemployed youth to avail the benefits of the schemes being implemented by the Government. He said that 102 unemployed youth had been imparted technical training in pearl culture in various districts of the State.

Dhawala said that at present about 10,000 families were earning their income through pisciculture related activities. He said that 7380 MT fish production was registered in the state fetching revenue of Rs 2 crore during the previous financial year. He said that to encourage private participation in trout farming, insurance cover of Rs 47 lakh was being provided to all the fishermen. Besides, assistance like fish seed, fish feed etc was being made available to the interested farmers in the State, said he.

The Minister directed the officers to speed up the endeavours to ensure adequate supply of fish seed to the fishermen from outside the State till land on lease was not acquired from Bhakra Beas Management Board near Pong reservoir. He said that this would also ensure fairly good collection of fish seed in the reservoirs of the State.