Fish Farming in West Bengal

The Government of India introduced the Fish Farmers Development Agency (FFDA) program to provide self employment and financial, technical and extension support to fish farming in rural areas. The present work makes a comparative study of the functioning of FFDA in the two districts of Burdwan and Birbhum in the state of West Bengal in India. It assesses the impact of FFDA on the productivity of fish farming and on fish farmers' income. It examines the contribution of FFDA program in the economic upliftment of the rural economy in these two districts. It also identifies the problems faced by the fish farmers and recommends measures to be adopted for solving these problems. The study finds that the introduction of the FFDA Program has a clearly positive impact on rural economy through employment income generation, through raising the standards of living of the fish farmers and through improving the socio-economic conditions of the rural community of the two districts.