₹25 crore Aqua Park to be developed in state capital

Indore: The department of fisheries, which on Friday organized a programme in Indore to mark completion of three years of Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, saw Union minister Parshottam Rupala announcing to develop an aqua park in Bhopal costing around Rs 25 crore.
“We had sent a proposal to develop an aqua park in Bhopal as we have around 4 acres of land available in Bhadbhada area,” MP fisheries department’s principal secretary Kalpana Shrivastava said, adding that the Union minister in the programme approved the proposal by sanctioning over Rs 25 crore for the project.
“The aqua park will have a training centre for the fishermen to learn about new techniques and how to use new technologies to expand their business by increasing the productions along with enhancing quality and varities of the same,” she said adding that a big aquarium will be developed to show the aquatic life there along with products including prawns, seeds of different fish that MP is leading in production and export.
She added that against the demand of 181 crore seeds in 2022-23, MP had produced 210 crore seeds while the state is also on first spot by distributing around 84,000 Kisan Credit Cards to the fishermen in this duration.
Union minister Rupala said, “From Independence till 2014, a total Rs3,614 crore was spent on fisheries department while after launching PMMSY in 2019, a total budget of Rs 20,000cr has been sanctioned for it to develop infrastructure, increasing post harvesting, marketing and extending possible benefits and assistances to the fishermen while blue resolution and fisheries and aquaculture infrastructure development fund are also meant for the same”.
He added that involvement of states is also being sought in the fisheries sector. “As a result, we are presently exporting fishing products worth Rs 60,000 crore,” he said.