It was a special catch for the fishermen of Kovalam. Though they go out to the sea every day and sell their catch on returning, this time, they were selling sea bass ( koduva ) they had reared in cylindrical cages that had been kept in the open sea.
“Since the monsoon set, we decided to harvest the fish early. Otherwise, all the work of these past five months would have been wasted. We were lucky to get good rates. The Fisheries Department found us buyers through the tender system. “In each cage, around 800 fingerlings were given to us, and each kg fetched around ₹300,” said K. Murugan, one of the 120 fishermen involved in the project.
The Fisheries Department provided cages, nets and feed free of cost with funding from the World Bank.
A total of ₹2.20 crore has been allocated for the scheme by the Bank for which as many as 800 youngsters in Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram have registered for training, officials said.
The youngsters were trained by experts from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute in various fields, including breeding the fish and making feed.
“The money from the sale is a big bonus since we usually earn a maximum of ₹300 after a full day at sea. During the time we were rearing the fish, a portion of the feed kept falling through the nets at the bottom of the cages, and crabs and a lot of fish we don’t usually catch gathered there. That was yet another bonus,” said Aadhi alias P. Arunkumar, 28.
Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar, who launched the harvest, said that cage culture would help create an alternative livelihood for fishermen.
Director Fisheries V.P. Dandapani, Joint Director N. Chandra and Additional Director B. Thirunageswaran were present on the occasion.
