Encouraged by the demand for fish in Telangana, plans are afoot to develop eco-hatcheries in three existing government hatcheries in the State for rearing fish seedlings that would be released into major water bodies. The Fisheries Department has taken up development of hatcheries as part of the Fish Seed Development programme aimed at supplying about 75 crore fishlings, benefitting nearly three lakh fishermen in the State. Eco-hatcheries are constructed to facilitate quality production of fishlings, especially breeding of commonly cultivated species such as Indian Major Carps and Amur Carps among others. The State government is planning to revive five government fish hatcheries at Lower Manair Dam (Rs 5.48 crore), Pochampad (Rs 7.58 crore), Manjeera (Rs 5.29 crore), Wyra (Rs 27.76 lakh) and Kinnerasani (Rs 53 lakh). Of these, eco-hatcheries are proposed to be developed at LMD, Pochampad and Manjeera. The hatchery at LMD will also have an eco-hatchery to produce quality scampi or prawn juveniles. On a pilot basis, the Fisheries Department has already released 1.08 crore hatchery-reared prawn juveniles in 11 different reservoirs of the State at an expenditure of Rs 1.38 lakh. About 51.1 crore fish seedlings were released into 11,067 water bodies with 100 subsidy which incurred an expenditure of about Rs 42 crore during 2017-18. As procurement of fish seedlings and releasing them into water bodies has become an annual affair, we wanted to explore possibilities of developing them in our existing government hatcheries and reduce recurring costs, officials of the department told Telangana Today. The government aims at releasing about 75 crore fishlings into these water bodies which would incur an expenditure of more than Rs 50 crore during 2018-19. The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) accorded financial assistance to Telangana State Fisherman Cooperative Societies Ltd (TSFCOF) for development of the sector. A comprehensive Integrated Fisheries Development Scheme (IFDS) has been prepared with an outlay of Rs 1,000 crore where about Rs 204 crore are being spent for setting up hatcheries.