Shrimps grow with carps

Dipok Roy (extreme left) with shrimps netted in his farm. The photo was taken recently. PHOTO: STAR

He had started with a small enclosure in Harina South Beel. His success encouraged many. There are at least 50 shrimp enclosures in the Beel (waterbody) now. All are earning hefty profit.

With training and years of experience, he can identify male and female shrimps at a glance. All about shrimp cultivation is at his fingers' end.

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Dipok Roy is the son of Nitai Roy of Hasina village in Monirampur Upazila. Poverty forced him to abandon studies after passing the SSC examination.

He opened a tailoring shop at a village market. But he did not find the work interesting. He had something else in mind.

Some days later, he did something not seen before in the area.

He raised an enclosure on his one and a half bighas of land and released shrimp fries.

Many in the area were bemused by this. As he had no training, Dipok incurred loss for two consecutive years. He did not know how many fries to be released and how to nurse those.

But this could not dent his spirit. He was looking for a training opportunity.

One day Dipok came to know that an employee of an non-government organisation -- Jagoroni Chakra (JC) --was conducting a survey in adjoining Jhikardanga village to form a fishermen's association.

He rushed there and took the NGO employees to his fish enclosure. He also introduced to the NGO employee some others in his village who were interested in fish cultivation.

This was the beginning for Dipok and some others in the village. They formed an association.

The NGO provided Dipok with the basic training. With its recommendation, he also took further training at a government-run fishery centre.

Back home, Dipok released 5060 shrimp fries in the enclosure and nursed those.

After three months, he sold those for Tk 77,680 and earned a net profit of Tk 52, 375. In addition, he stored 800 lobster fries in a ditch for the next year.

This was a turning point in his life.

He now earns over Tk two lakh a year from his small fish enclosure after meeting all expenses.

"My success has encouraged many. There are about 50 fish enclosures in the South Beel Hasina", Dipok told this correspondent during a visit to his village.

"Shrimp cultivation is a highly technical job and it needs training", he said.

Dipok says planned fish cultivation in the vast fallow waterbodies could be a profitable profession for educated youths, which could also earn huge amounts of foreign currency for the country. The government should take all out steps to promote this sector to remove unemployment, he said.