GUWAHATI, Aug 13 - Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal today said Assam with abundant water resources has immense potential to become a top fish producing and exporting state in the country and also tap the Southeast Asian market.
The Act East Policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has opened a window of opportunity for the State fish producers to gain access to Southeast Asian market and they must be prepared to compete with the best in the world, he said.
The Chief Minister was speaking at a meeting here to distribute appointment letters to 32 junior engineers of the fisheries department.
�Fishery sector has immense potential and we must vigorously engage in it for deriving maximum benefits. Assam is blessed with abundant water resources and we have the capacity to become biggest producer and exporter of fish in the country,� Sonowal said. �For that we must adopt latest scientific technologies for augmenting our production,� he said.
The infinite potential of the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers must be harnessed to achieve fast paced development of the State and vast presence of natural water-bodies must be properly utilised for growing the fishery sector, he said.
Stating that commercial fishermen go through a lot of hardship to catch fish which one cannot realise without witnessing their painstaking processes, Sonowal also announced that best fishermen and fish producers would be felicitated at a programme to acknowledge their contribution to the State�s fishery sector.
Appreciating the fishery department for being able to increase the State�s fish production by 20,000 metric tonne in 2017-18 from the previous year, he said the Chief Minister�s Samagra Grammya Unnayan Yojna (CMSGUY), a scheme to transform the rural economy with a budget outlay of Rs 33,000 crore, has also kept fishery as a priority area. � PTI
