‘Sareng’ fish back on menu for Ningol Chakouba festival

IMPHAL, Oct 25: People will enjoy ‘sareng’ in this year’s Ningol Chak-kouba festival which falls on October 27, the biggest festival of Manipur where married women are invited for a feast at their parental homes.
For the first time, over 3000 kg of locally produced fresh local sareng will be made available in the ‘44th Fish Fair Cum Fish Crop Competition, 2022’, said Manipur Fisheries minister H Dingo.
The fair is an annual event of the Fisheries department which will be organised on the eve of Ningol Chakouba. This year, the fair will be held on October 26 at Hapta Kangjeibung in Imphal, the minister informed at a press conference held in his office.
On Chakouba, fish is one of the most important delicacies, with sareng making a centerpiece. However, the fish is imported in bulk from other states as local sareng are rarely caught from lakes and rivers.
However, under the initiatives of the present government, many local farmers have successfully reared sareng in the valley areas since last year.
Under a pilot project, the state government had procured thousands of sareng fingerlings from various parts of the country and even neighbouring Myanmar and distributed them to the local fish farmers.
The minister said that the Fisheries department is all set to make available over 3000 kg of sareng during the fair.
He said that the Fisheries department joining hands with the fish farmers have put in best efforts to enhance sareng production as it is the most preferred variety in the state.
Stating that fish production had increased a lot in the state in the past few years, the minister asserted that the state is targeting to achieve self-sufficiency in fish production by 2025.
For this, the state government has been putting in best possible efforts by supporting the fish farmers with loans and Start-Up schemes, he said.
He informed that in the upcoming fish fair and fish crop competition, over one lakh kg of different varieties of fish produced by 100 fish farmers from across the 16 districts of the state will be put on sale. (NNN)