The Mandapam Regional Centre of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) will soon emerge as an International centre of excellence in mariculture, Director of CMFRI A. Gopalakrishnan has said.
Talking to reporters here after inaugurating “Marine ornamental fish breeding and aquarium management techniques,” a 10-day training programme here on Wednesday, he said a proposal to this effect had been made in the 12th plan document and the regional centre would get the international status after the approval of the document by the new government at the Centre.
“We expect this to happen within a short of span of time,” he said adding that once it became the centre for excellence, there would be more emphasis on mariculture and ornamental fish culture. “There will be more training programmes with foreign participants and it will be more visible to the international community,” he said. The Mandapam centre had the advantage of good quality sea water and resources in one place, unlike in Andaman and other places, where the sources were away from the mainland,.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan said under the network programme in mariculture, proposal had been made in the 12th plan document for more funding and manpower to the Mandapam centre, which was a lead and core centre. As soon as the approval of the plan document, the centre would be exclusively given Rs 10.5 crore, he added.
“With the ongoing mariculture activities, the centre would also be given more manpower. Couple of more scientists would be joining and more research scholars would be involved in the network programme,” he said.
On the controversies surrounding the wild collection of marine ornamental fishes, he said the guidelines issued by the Marine Aquarium Council for green certification for the wild collection were not suited to Indian conditions and suggested that they could be suitably modified to suit Indian conditions.
The Mandapam centre, under the guidance of G. Gopakumar, Scientist in-charge, has developed and standardised technologies for breeding 16 marine ornamental fish species, which included Orange clown, False clown, Sebae clown, Maroon clown, Humbug damsel and Sapphiredevil damsel.
Earlier, Mr. Gopalakrishnan inspected the sea cage farming and harvesting of cobia fishes, a demonstration of the technology for breeding the species by the Mandapam centre and inaugurated the newly established Marine Reef Aquarium, a first of its kind in the regional centre and seed production centre of marine fish and shell fish.
