Education Minister G Jagadish Reddy on Sunday said the State government decided to grow fish in 40 per cent of the area of village tanks in the State under the Integrated Fisheries Development Scheme to provide livelihood to fishermen community.
Speaking after releasing fish seedlings into village tank at Annaram in Penpahad mandal, Minister said that the State government took up the Integrated Fisheries Development Scheme and decided to supply fish seedlings to the fishermen cooperative societies free of cost as a part of its measures to revive traditional professions. Revival of traditional professions will automatically lead to economic development of rural areas in the State, he added.
He said that the damage caused to chain of village tanks in Telangana in last 60 years of Andhra rule impacted the agriculture sector, which in turn affected rural economy as a whole. He pointed out the dismal spending record of the previous governments for the revival of village tanks.
In addition to taking up measures for revival of chain of village tanks, the State government has launched several schemes for revival of caste based professions and Integrated Fisheries Development Scheme was one among them, he added.
He informed that 3.61 crore fish seedlings would be released into 561 village tanks in Suryapet district. District Collector D Amoy Kumar and officials of fisheries department were also present.