One of the bheris in East Midnapore. (Jahangir Badsa)

Tamluk, May 11: Rice farmers in East Midnapore’s coastal areas have complained to district authorities that illegal aquaculture has increased the salt concentration in local water and hurt their paddy yields.

At least 500 farmers have complained to the land department and the zilla parishad that production of paddy has dwindled because of the salinity of water routed for pisciculture by fish farmers through canals from rivers that flow into the Bay of Bengal. The farmers alleged that aquaculture was being done illegally in around 20,000 acres in Contai, Khejuri, Narghat, Sutahata, Bhagabanpur and Haldia.

District officials said at least 10,000 big and small bheris (fish farms) were being run without permission and in violation of other rules. As salty water from sections of the Hooghly, Haldi, Rasulpur and Rupnarayan rivers that are close to the Bay of Bengal is being channelled to the bheris through canals, it is affecting crops.

A state fisheries department official in Contai confirmed that the fisheries were not following rules. “We have found that these fisheries have been set up illegally. We have suggested steps against the owners of about 50 fisheries. We will take action against the others too,” said Pinaki Ranjan Dey, assistant director of fisheries in Contai. Another official said FIRs would be lodged against them.

Anandadeb Mukhopadhyay, a professor of oceanography at Jadavpur University, said: “The water in rivers close to the coast are brackish because sea water enters during high tide. If this salty water seeps into cultivable land, it will affect paddy, which grows better in sweet water.”

Several farmers spoke about a significant drop in paddy production, with several “illegal” fish ponds mushrooming in the area in the past five years. “Even two years ago, I used to produce 20 quintals of paddy every year. This year, I managed only five quintals. This is because of salt water entering my field from a nearby bheri,” said Satish Mondal, a farmer from Marishda village in Contai.

Swapan Mondal, a farmer from Baro Nawai village in Contai, said he was forced to convert his one-acre plot into a fishery “because of losses I suffered by cultivating paddy on land damaged by salty water”.

A senior district fisheries department official said some rules needed to be followed to set up fisheries.

“First, permission has to be obtained from the local panchayat. Second, to convert farmland into a fishery, a fee of Rs 5,000 has to be paid to the land department for every acre. Third, a no-objection certificate has to be obtained from the owners of agricultural land surrounding the bheri. Fourth, the fishery owner will have to build a 50-metre-wide boundary around the bheri. Fifth, the fish cultivator will have to pay compensation to owners of land around the bheri. The amount will be fixed by the fisheries and agriculture departments.”

He said all fisheries in the area were not being run illegally. “Fisheries have been set up on 10,000 acres in accordance with rules.”

Till a year ago, only a licence from the fisheries department was enough to set up a bheri. “Some farmers had moved the high court in 2010 complaining that their paddy production was being affected because of seepage of saline water into their land. The court last year ruled that fishery owners would have to keep land as buffer between the bheri and the boundary wall. This land will have to be 20 per cent of the total area of the fishery,” Dey said.

A fisheries department official said mostly tiger prawns were farmed in the East Midnapore fisheries. “Every year, 15,000 tonnes of prawn are produced and much of it is exported to Japan. The entire business is worth Rs 500 crore.”

The deputy director of agriculture of East Midnapore, Swapan Kumar Bandopadhyay, said: “If the salt content remains high over a prolonged period, the land will no longer be fertile and eventually become unfit for cultivation.”

A senior rice scientist said salinity could reduce rice yields and farmers facing such conditions could opt for rice varieties that were tolerant of salinity. “The choice of rice becomes very important,” said Trilochan Mohapatra, director of the Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, Odisha, which has developed three varieties of salinity-tolerant rice and released them for commercial cultivation for farmers in the state.

Mohapatra said the level and extent of the salinity would need to be examined in Bengal’s coastal districts before any choice could be made about appropriate rice varieties that could be cultivated there.

A fishery owner in East Midnapore said: “We don’t want to convert farmland into fisheries in accordance with rules because then we won’t be able to revert back to the farmland.”