KENDRAPARA: The shrimp farmers of Kendrapara have suffered a huge setback with cyclone Fani washing away most of the farms in the seaside villages.
Apart from economically decimating the marginal and small-scale shrimp farmers, the cyclone has hit hard around 20,000 workers, who were directly dependent on the shrimp farms in the coastal pockets. The exports too have been badly impacted by the storm.
Rabi Tripathy, a shrimp cultivator of Gupti, said his four shrimp farms over 12 acres of land were completely washed away by tidal surge. “Shrimps worth Rs 20 lakh in my gheries were washed away in the cyclone. Had Fani not ravaged my shrimp farms, I could have made a profit of Rs 20 lakh,” said Rabi.
Kamalesh Mohanty, president of Sea Food Exporter Associations of India (Odisha region) said huge quantity of shrimps were washed away by a tidal surge that breached the embankments at several points in the coastal parts of the State during Fani. The shrimp farmers of Puri, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur are the worst affected,” he added.
Around 32 seafood export companies of the State exported 45,000-tonne seafood worth Rs 3,200 crore in 2018-19. Fani was a huge blow to the fishing sector as hundreds of fishing boats, prawn farms and other infrastructure were damaged, Mishra said.
Apart from shrimp farms, the cyclone also damaged infrastructure like houses, pumps, ice factories, fishing jetties, prawn seed collection centres etc, worth of crores of rupees. It will take long to recover the loss, said Ajay Das, a shrimp farmer.
“We need loans from banks and other help from the authorities to rebuild the damaged prawn farms,” added Das.
Joint Director of Fisheries (Coastal), Pratap Ranjan Rout said “around 7,000 hectares of fish ponds in the coastal pockets has been damaged in the cyclone as per the preliminary survey. The Government has announced Rs 12,200 compensation per hectare for fish farmers.”