GUNTUR: Owners of shrimp hatcheries are adopting latest technology to cut costs and reduce their losses amid the pandemic. As the shrimp produced in Bapatla is of supreme quality, the demand for these shrimps has increased in northern States over the past few years.
Less pollution and the quality of water in the coastal region of Bapatla is suitable for hatching of prawns. This has resulted in an increase in the number of hatcheries in the past five years. Currently, the region has as many as 12 hatcheries, which are giving employment to hundreds of people in the area.
The owners have adopted the latest technology in packaging, storing, and transportation of prawns. This resulted in an increase in exports. In the past if 30 million prawns were exported, it has increased to more than 400 million now. Earlier, about 80 per cent of the exports used to be through flights, but with flights being cancelled for months due to Covid-19, the hatchery owners hit upon an idea to use special thawing vehicles for transportation by road.
This has resulted not only in saving expenditure incurred on transport by 50 per cent, but also helped them recover from Covid-19 losses. This apart, about 1,080 million live prawn babies are produced every year. They are transported in special bags containing oxygen, food and cold temperature for the prawn babies during transportation. They can survive in these bags for as many as 30 hours.
The hatcheries staff take special care to supply live prawn babies to north, depending on the weather conditions and temperature there. This results in good yield to the farm ers there and fame to the hatchery owners of Bapatla.
