By King RJ
Ganderbal, Nov 28: With an aim to provide technical support to Youths especially in Fisheries farming, Faculty of Fisheries SKUAST-Kashmir through Division of Fishery Engineering in collaboration with ICAR- CIFT (GoI) distributed technology inputs/equipments among Schedule Tribe youth to boost entrepreneurship through Fisheries.
The programme was conducted under the project entitled “Entrepreneurship Development among Scheduled Tribe Communities through Harvest and Post Harvest Management of Fishes” funded by ICAR-CIFT( Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India).
The Programme was presided over by Prof. (Dr.) Dil Mohammad Makhdoomi, Director Extension, SKUAST-K, and the other dignitaries present during the programme were Dr. George Ninan Director ICAR-CIFT (GoI), Prof. (Dr.) Farooz Ahmad Bhat, Dean Faculty of Fisheries SKUAST-K, Prof. (Dr.) Gohar Bilal Wani, Head Division of Fishery Engineering/ Nodal officer ICAR-CIFT, SKUAST-K, Dr Tariq Hussain, Head Division of PHT, SKUAST-K, Scientists from Faculty of Fisheries SKUAST-K and other National Institute.
Prof. Gohar Bilal Wani briefed progress of the project and the various events carried since one year.
Prof. Wani emphasized that fisheries has tremendous scope /potential in Kashmir to confront unemployment problem in state.
He enlightens the house that 240 Scheduled Tribe (ST) youth were trained under this project from last few months in fisheries. He further said the impact of training during few months has resulted in the formation of entrepreneurship groups of Scheduled Tribe who have taken fisheries business as their livelihood.
Dean, Faculty of Fisheries, Prof. (Dr.) Farooz Ahmad Bhat, formally welcomed the dignitaries present on the occasion through both offline and online.
Dean, Faculty of Fisheries congratulated Prof. Wani Head, Division of Fishery Engineering and Dr Tariq Hussain, Head Division of Post Harvest Technology (Fisheries) for making the targets under the said project successful.
He discussed in detail the various post Harvest and value addition avenues in fisheries sector which will of immense help in eradicating the poverty and in generating the livelihood among the youth especially from the backward classes of the community.
Prof. Dil Mohammad Makhdoomi, Director Extension, SKUAST-K, congratulated the Scientists of Faculty of Fisheries for conducting such entrepreneurship programmes which provided entrepreneurship and employment to the young qualified persons of Scheduled Tribe people. He highlighted the importance of value addition in fish and other products for enhancing the generation and more revenue through the Post Harvest.
Director Extension also discussed various schemes and start ups in which SKUAST-K can help in providing the platform in taking any Agriculture sectior as an entrepreneurship and business on large scale.
At the end of the programme equipments related to Post Harvest Fisheries like Smoking Kiln, Fish De-scaler, Fish carrying ice boxes, complete kitchen wares etc were distributed among the Scheduled Tribe beneficiaries by the Director Extension and Dean Fofy along with the Nodal officer ICAR-CIFT SKUAST-K and other organisers.
Programme ended with vote of thanks by Dr. Shabir Ahmad Dar, Assistant Professor, Division of Fishery Engineering and the whole programme was hosted by the Dr. Ashfaq Farooq Agha, Assistant Professor, Division of Fishery Engineering.
