Vijayawada: Following the order of the Hyderabad High Court, the fisheries department officials are gearing up to clear the pending applications for aqua ponds in Gudivada and Bandar mandals of Krishna district. Since more than two years, over 13,000 applicants have been awaiting clearance from the district administration.
Lack of coordination between revenue department officials who have to verify ground-level issues and the fisheries department which has few staff has led to the delay in issuing permission to the 13,000 applications so far.
Keeping in view the request from farmers association, the government has extended the final date of applying for regularisation of existing unregistered aquaculture farms to March 31, 2016 as per the GO 15 of the fisheries department issued in May this year.
However, the court, which took serious note of violation of rules, has asked the district administration to make sure that all the existing ponds are regularised in coming four months or be closed thereafter.
This has cut short the time available for district administration and fisheries department to clear all the applications by four months.
While regularisation of ponds is a task of the administration, checking the legality of the ponds which are not in the notice of authorities so far, is a tough task for officials. Such ponds will be closed once identified.
The department issued certain rules and regulations for establishment of fresh water ponds and also amended them in the GO 15 to encourage more farmers.
“We have time till March 2016 as per the government order to regularise the ponds in district. But we are speeding up works. There is also problem with online applications and awareness is needed among the farmers as well as revenue officials and other concerned departments at the mandal level. In a month, we shall streamline the procedure,” said deputy director of fisheries department A. Solomon Raju.
