By Our Correspondent
Saptari, Feb. 9: The Fisheries Development Centre Fattepur located in Saptakoshi Municipality of Saptari district, has performed impressively despite facing several problems.
It was the largest fishing centre in Nepal last year in terms of producing and selling fingerlings.
The centre produced and sold about of 3 million fingerlings in the fiscal year 2019/20.
It has made big achievements through fisheries related programmes, including entrepreneurship, employment generation, skill development and capacity enhancement.
Similarly, the centre has stated that it has succeeded in maintaining the status by conducting several activities like agricultural fair exhibition, strengthening of nursery pond, mother fish pond and water management.
Chief Fisheries Development Officer at the Centre Bhupanarayan Mandal, said, "We are working to produce quality fish breeds of different species required for fisheries development and bring them to the farmers and make private entrepreneurs self-reliant in quality breed production."
He said that the centre could be developed as a tourist area and the barren land could be used for productive work if necessary budget and programmes were provided.
Spread in an area of over 16 hectares, the centre has developed physical infrastructures, including office building, training hall, fish laboratory, fish hatchery and net shed.
Forty-two ponds have been constructed in an area of 7.32 hectares for the production of fish and fingerlings.
Of them, 24 ponds are fully operational while six ponds spreading in over 1.66 hectares of land are in use only partially and 12 ponds covering an area of 1.95 hectares are not in use.
The centre said it was facing problems to operate its offices and programmes and transport the materials as the centre is located far away place from the district headquarters and the highway.
Mandal said that the expansion of services could not be encouraging as they lacked enough budget for administrative and development works.
The centre has been providing service in Saptari, Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari, Udayapur, Khotang, Bhojpur, Okhaldhunga, Dhankuta, Ilam, Taplejung, Panchthar, Terhathum and Sankhuwasabha districts.