KARIMNAGAR, OCTOBER 03, 2024: Minister for Transport and BC Welfare Ponnam Prabhakar formally released fish seedlings into the Lower Manair Dam reservoir in Karimnagar town on Thursday.
He had released a total of 30 lakh fish seedlings into the reservoir which would benefit about 2,000 fishermen in 23 villages and produce 1920.29 tonnes of fish worth Rs 11.50 crore.
Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said that the Karimnagar district had 1023 water bodies including lakes and tanks and they had decided to release 231.35 lakh fish seedlings free of cost for the benefit of fishermen and provide nutritional food to the people.
Mr Prabhakar said that the LMD has the capacity to raise over 60 lakh fish and appealed to the fishermen to bring the brand name to the Karimnagar fish and export to other parts of the country. He assured a subsidy for setting up cold storage to store the fish and export them to foreign countries.
He also said that he was taking all measures to release fish seedlings in all the lakes and tanks in the Husnabad assembly segment. He said that the Telangana government under the leadership of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was according priority for the protection and encouragement of traditional trades and included them in MSME policy to provide necessary financial assistance.
Fisheries Corporation Chairman Mettu Sai Kumar said that the fish seedlings were released into the water bodies only because of the Chief Minister and Minister for Transport. He alleged that the former BRS government was plagued with several irregularities in the release of fish seedlings and betrayed the fishermen. Choppadandi MLA Medipalli Satyam, Mayor Sunil Rao, Collector Pamela Satpathy and others were also present.
