ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF RESERVOIR FISH FARMING (RFF) : A REINVENTED PEN CULTURE SYSTEM INTRODUCED BY DIRECTORATE OF FISHERIES, JHARKHAND TO ADAPT HYDROLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RESERVOIRS OF JHARKHAND.

The present paper is an attempt to study the economic performance of a reinvented pen culture technology popularized under the brand name Reservoir Fish Framing (RFF) introduced by the Directorate of Fisheries, Jharkhand in Kake Reservoir in Ranchi through a cooperative management approach. The results revealed that RFF in the Kake reservoir was moderately capital intensive with Rs.13.66 lakh of total investment in fixed inventories. It was further observed that the establishment of an onsite portable hatchery to enable an uninterrupted supply of fish seed captured the major chunk of the investment of about 43.92 per cent with Rs. 6 lakh. The cost of production investigation adopting the cost concept approach showed that Cost A1 accounts for about 91.88 per cent with Rs. 67,629/ha/annum and feed cost was found to be a single major input factor with 50.72 per cent (Rs. 37,333/ha/annum) of the total cost of production which was estimated to be Rs. 73610/ha/ annum. The rate of return over different costs revealed that RFF at Kake reservoir was economically sound with gross and net income of Rs.8.24 and Rs.5.42 lakh/ha/annum, respectively. Hence, it can be concluded that RFF at Kake reservoir under cooperative management approach was economically feasible, which was also vindicated by high return per rupee investment which was estimated to be Rs. 11.20. Therefore, the study concludes that RFF model at Kake reservoir has a high potential to be a key technological intervention approach in reservoirs management having high prospects in economically empowering the marginalized communities dependent on reservoirs and recommends its replication in other reservoirs of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]