Under Salty Waters

- Jitendra

GSREENIVAS GROWS paddy twice every year on his 0.3 hectare (ha) farmland in Dugdurparly village, East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh (AP). But for the past one year, he hasn’t been able to grow anything even though his village lies in the Konaseema region, one of the most fertile plains in the country. The reason: Sreenivas points to an illegal shrimp rearing pond right next to his farm. The extremely salty water in the pond, while suitable for shrimp rearing or brackish aquaculture, seeps into the soil, reducing its fertility and contaminating groundwater—the only source of water in this village.

In the past few years, thousands of such ponds have come up in East Godavari district, and many of them are illegal. An official from the state fisheries department who spoke to Down To Earth (DTE) on the condition of anonymity says that in East Godavari, “the area under brackish aquaculture cultivation is more than 18,000 ha, whereas on paper it is around 7,000 ha”. Shrimp rearing in water that is more saline than freshwater and less saline than seawater is called brackish aquaculture. Apart from East Godavari, three other districts—West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur—contribute almost 75 per cent of the shrimp production in the region. These lie in the delta of Krishna and Godavari rivers, which join the Bay of Bengal, providing brackish water resources.