The ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CIFRI) of Barrackpore in West Bengal organised a regional consultation on Open Water Fisheries Development in the North East Region’ in the city recently. A total of 40 delegates, including scientists and researchers from ICAR-CIFRI, participated in the consultation. Dr BK Bhattacharjya, Head of ICAR-CIFRI Regional Centre, Guwahati, welcomed the participants and sought inputs from the delegates on the roadmap for open water fisheries development in the North East prepared by the institute, before publishing it. In his inaugural address, Dr BK Das, Director of ICAR-CIFRI, emphasised the need for developing open water fisheries in the region and assured of providing research support to the State Fisheries Department. He explained the background and purpose of the regional consultation and stressed the need to prepare an effective roadmap for developing open water fisheries of the region through consultation among the stakeholders. In his inaugural address, Parimal Suklabaidya, Minister of Fisheries stressed the need for making the region self-sufficient in fish production by utilising all available fishery resources. He urged all the fisheries departments of the region to work with the common goal of achieving self-sufficiency in fish production through concerted efforts. He also highlighted the recent initiatives of the Government of Assam to bring about a Blue Revolution in the State through the Ponds For All Fish For All’ scheme launched by the Government. The technical session was chaired by Dr BK Das and co-chaired by Dr PK Pandey. Dr BK Bhattacharjya and other scientists from the Centre proposed State-specific roadmaps for open water fisheries development in the region. The updated data showed that the total fish production in the North East stood at 4,23,749 metric tonne (mt) during 2015-16 (Assam 2,97,000 mt, Tripura 68,331 mt, Manipur 32,000 mt, Nagaland 8,220 mt, Mizoram 6,828 mt, Meghalaya 6,560 mt, Arunachal Pradesh 4,410 mt and Sikkim 400 mt). This was four per cent of the country’s total fish production and met 86 per cent fish requirement of the region (present requirement estimated at 4,82,384 mt). The presentation showed that the region has tremendous potential for enhancement of fish production from inland open waters. The potential of fish production in open water fisheries of the North East has been estimated at 1,39,846 tonnes (14,142 tonnes from rivers, 8,358 from reservoirs, 1,17,346 from wetlands, lakes and swamps).