October 3 1970REASONS FOR ABANOONING BUNDH BARETHA FISH FARMThe
fish farm at Bundh Baretha has major defects whlch willprevent
flsh-culture work from being done there until d-raeticchanges are
made. The Fisheries Iepartment must now decidewhether to commit its
resources to making these changes, orto abandon the fish farm. The
following reasons have led me tothe conclusion that the farm should
be abandoned.I) UNJUSTIFIABLY EXPENSIVE CHANGES ARE NEEDED:In order
to make the present fish farm operational, major improvements would
be necessary. The most striking problem is that ofseepage. Due t t
he sandy soil, water will not stay in the nurserieswhen the level
in the reservoir falls below that of the fish farm.The fish farm
dried up completely during the dry season this year,and due to a
weak monsoon thls year there will not be adequatewater. for any
fish culture at all. Within a few years the characterof the seepage
problem may e altered completely. pipeline iscurrently being
constructed to supply the city of Bharatpur withdrinking water from
Bundh Baretha. In conjunction with thisscheme, plans have been made
to construct a small dam andbridge across the outlet and raise the
water level of the reservoirby ten feet. When this occurs, the
water seepage at the fishfarm would keep the nurseries full at all
times. The problemthen would be that the nurseries could not be
drained. f the nurseriescannot be drained, fish-culture is
impossible. In order to solvethe drainage problem when the water
level in tre reservoir israised, completely new nurseries would
have to e constructedabove the ground level. This would be
excessively expensive.In addition to the seepage problems, many
other expers ive improvements are required. These include
constructing a new watersource, a new water system, a new drainage
system, and supplying thenurseries with cement catch basins and
roads. more detaileddescription of needed alterations and the
reliSons for them is given inthe Report on Work Done at Bundh
Baretha which I 'drafted earl ier
. . . . 2/-
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II} INHERENT DRAWBACK OF PUKKAH NURSERIES:The inherent drawback
of pukkah nurseries is their high constructioncost in comparison to
katchah nurseries. The same amount ofmoney spent here to make nine
pukkah nurseries would fund many morenurseries and thus produce
many more fish, i it were spent onkatchah nureseries at a site with
proper soil. Fish produced incostly pukkah nurseries will never be
able to compete on an economicbasis with fish produced ln low-cost
katchah nurseries.III) INHERENT DRA BACK OF SMALL FISH FARM:The
fish farm at Bundh Baretha has only nine 1/10 acre nurseriesand one
1/2 acre rearing tank. small fish farm such as this hasmany of the
same overhead costs as a larger fish farm, and thusis uneconomical.
The expenses i >r staff are almcs t the same fora small farm as
for a large one, and some of the construction expensessuch as the
water source and drainage system will also remainconstant, thereby
raising the cost of production. Even if allnecessary money is p n t
and the fish farm is put in workingorder, l t will always be small
and operating costs per fish producedwlll be high. The fish farm at
Rana Pratap Sagar has fifty nurseries,and therefore holds far
greater potential than does the tiny operationat Bundh Baretha.IV)
BAD LOCATION WILL ALWAYS GIVE HEADACHES:Bad soil and location means
that even if a great deal of moneyis spent on repairing and
improving the present fish farm, it willalways be plagued by minor
defects. When Dr. Howard Clemensvisited here, he compared this kind
of situltion to driving in a carwith bad tyres: the tyres will go
flat again and again In spiteof constant patching. Eternally
patching the tyres wlll only leadto the frustration and
discouragement of those trying to travelin the car. What is needed
is to throw away the old tyres andreplace them with new ones. What
is needed here is an entirelynew fish farm-------in a new
location.
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3 V DECISION TO MAKE M JOR CHANGES REALLY DECISION TOM KE NEW
FISH FARM:So many major improvements would be necessary to make the
fishfarm at Bundh Baretha operational that what the Department
wouldactually be doing if it decides to overhaul it is to build an
entirelynew fish farm on the same bad location. Putting in entirely
newabove ground pukkah nurseries drains water-systems etcis in
effect to make a new fish farm. Only the living q I ar ters v o
uldbe left of the present facitities. Mhy make the same mistake
twlceby choosing the same bad site for the new fish farm?VI
STOCKING BUNDH B RETH UNNECESSARY:The fish farm was built on the
Bundh Baretha site with theassumption that the fingerlings to be
produced there would be neededto stock the Bundh Baretha reservoir.
This assumption is highlyquestionable. The. reservoir has a
naturally reproducing population ofmajor carps. Supplementing this
natural recruitmmt by stockinga few thousand fingerlings every year
is not justifiable. In a reser-voir as large as Bundh Baretha the
recovery of the stocked fingerlings would be extremely small.
Stocking for large reservoirs shouldnot be done with the intent of
continuously adding fingerlings whichwill later be harvested in the
commercial catch. Rather largereservoir stocking programs should be
limlted to introducing newspecies which are not already e8tabllshed
ln the reservoir. Thlswould not be done with a few thousand
fingerlings spread overseveral years but with a massive
introduction of fingerlings atone time; combined with other
management such as eradication ofweed fish and improvement of
spawn.fng areas. Since the stockingprogram in Bundh Baretha is not
of a kind suitable for largereservoirs it should be discontinued.
Fish seed from a nearby fishfarm is therefore unnecessary.VII
STATE-WIDE PLANNING OF FISH F RM DEVELOPMENT MUSTBE BASED ON SOUND
ECONOMICS:The. one objection that has been raised to the proposal
to abandonthe Bundh Baretha Fish Farm is that so much money has
already beeninvested that the farm must be put in working order at
any cost.
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Thi.s is not a valid reason for spending money on further
attemptingto develop a bad site Sentimental considerations must be
set asidein deciding where the Fisheries Department will invest ite
money. Allsites in the state should be objactlvely evaluated and
the moneyspent where it will bring the b est return. Because of the
~ o o rlocation, the Bundh Baretha Fish Farm will never give an ~ d
e q u t ereturn if additional money is invested. The money
earmarked bythe Department for fish culture would yiel far more
fingerlingsper rupee spent i tt vVere concentrated on the Rana
Pratap Sagarsite in Kota District. Fingerlings could then be
transported fromthere to ponds and reservoirs throughout the state
which havebeen shown to need stocking, and the excess fingerlings
sold outsidethe state at considerable profit.VIII BUNDH BARETHA
PROJECT STILL NEEDED FOR RESERVOIRRESEARCH:Were the Bundh Baretha
Flsh Farm to be abandoned, the ProjectOfficer slated to come to
Bundh Baretha would still be needed forreservoir research and
management. Bundh Baretha has tremendouspotential as a site for
reservoir research. \Vhen the Americanfisheries expert, Dr. Howard
C. Clemens, visited Rajasthan, hespoke of Rajasthan as having the
potential to become the impound-ment research centre of the world.
11 The funds to be spent on theBundh Baretha project can well be
used to equip the Project Officerfor a proper study of the
reservoir.
