To promote entrepreneurial competencies and for enthusing new generation business ideas among students, the UGC-Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Kaushal Kendra has set up an Ornamental Fish Breeding Centre in its campus at Tengakhat College. Attending the meeting as a chief guest, the national secretary of Yuva Vikas Society (YVS), a premier NGO of New Delhi, Ashish Vilas Bhave, who works in the Youth Development Sector, inaugurated the newly-built aquariums for fish breeding in Aqua World. Gracing the inaugural event, the Principal of Tengakhat College and Director in-charge of UGC-DDU KK, Dr Kiran Hazarika in his deliberation elaborated on the various youth development activities being undertaken in the entire country. Breeding and trading of ornamental fish is the latest profit-making venture for many youths in the country. Bright colours, contrasting stripes and spots, they come in all colours, designs and sizes, swimming with a lazy countenance in placid aquamarine waters. Aquariums with ornamental fish lend a sense of serenity and beauty to the space they occupy and are popular in all metro cities. The Red Cap, Black Gold Fish, Bubble Eye Gold Fish, Angel Fish, Fighter, Guppy, Sharks and many others that adorn the living rooms or star hotels are actually bred and nurtured in large quantities in rural areas. By taking the advantage of good climate and availability of required resources at a cheap rate, in future the project may be expanded to house-to-house level in Tengakhat for the benefit of unemployed youths and housewives by DDUKK. There is lack of knowledge about the breeding business of ornamental fish in Assam in comparison to the ornamental fish activities carried out in the States of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where a few number of people initiated the activity of ornamental fish breeding. Most of the ornamental fish activities are concentrated in five States of India -West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Initially a handful of people started breeding ornamental fish in these States, with most of them having good business in this sector. The demand for ornamental fish and skilled aquarium designers are increasing in the State as there is no such organized business on ornamental fish breeding. To fill the vacuum, some students of B.Voc under UGC Deen Dayal Upadhaya Kaushal Kendra, Tengakhat College, after analyzing the demand supply gap, formed a group named Aqua World’ in the college for ornamental fish breeding and for its trading. In this context, the coordinator of the project, Radheesh Gopalan, by elaborating the aims and objectives in his speech, said that at first the Centre would start its business with Red Cap, Bubble Eye, Gold Fish, Black Gold Fish, Siamese Fighter Fish, Angel and Guppy and as per demand in the coming days, they would breed some more varieties of ornamental fish here.
The Sentinel, 2003-2009