Viral infection hit AP aqua farms
The growth of prawn culture in Andhra Pradesh had received a setback due to the outbreak of a viral disease, according to an official spokesman of the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA). He said since 1994, the loss of marine products was estaimated at about Rs 1,203 crore. The loss due to the viral disease in the first half of this financial year was estimated at Rs 179 crore. The MPEDA had held a series of demonstrations at farmers' ponds for disease free shrimp farming. The farmers were also told about the latest techniques in aquaculture. The diagnostic labs set up by the MPEDA for screening of seeds before stocking had been extremely useful for the shrimp farmers to stock quality seeds.Apr-Oct oilmeal exports fall
India's oilmeal exports dropped to 758,505 tonnes in the seven months of 1999/2000 (April-March) from 1.09 million tonnes in the year-ago period, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India said on Friday. The trade body did not give any reasons for the decline in exports. Soymeal is India's main oilmeal export item. It is primarily exported to the Southeast Asian countries including South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, China and the Middle East.
India cancels Dec fuel buy tender
State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has cancelled its 38,000 tonne December 10-12 fuel oil buy tender, a company source said on Friday. The tender, which closed on November 25 with a one-day validity, sought 3.5 percent sulphur, 175-centistoke (cst) fuel oil with a maximum CCR (Conradson carbon residue) content of 10 percent for delivery to the West coast Port of Bombay. The source said IOC cancelled the tender because it could source the fuel oil internally and had no need to import. In its last tender awarded on November 9, IOC purchased 10,000 tonnes of 175-cst two percent sulphur fuel oil for November 18-23 delivery to the West coast Port of Mangalore at a $30 per tonne premium over the average of Singapore and Middle East quotes, industry sources said.
States told to finish irrigation work
The ministry of water resources today advised the states to focus on completion of the ongoing irrigation projects rather than going in for new schemes. According to an official release, the states have also been advised to review the status of project implementation and complete them before new ones are taken up. The ministry has noticed that a number of projects under the irrigation command area development programme (some of them started more than 20 years back) were still under execution. In many of these projects, either work has not yet started or very little work has been done, accounting for thin spread of allocated financial resources. The ministry has suggested that new projects should be proposed only after older projects on irrigation development are completed.
Kerala land boards inaugurated
Kerala finance minister T Sivadasa Menon today said states had to consider evolving land use policies envisaging strategies to increase the utility of land and its productive capacity to prevent the degradation of the eco-system. Inaugurating the annual review meeting of state land boards here, Menon urged implementation of full fledged land use policy to cover not only the agricultural area, but also the field of `spatial planning' for industrial, commercial and residential areas. Menon said as far as Kerala was concerned, out of the total geographical area of 38.86 lakh hectares, 9.52 lakh hectares of land faced severe soil erosion. The state's rice production had come down to one-fourth of its requirement,he said. He expressed the hope that all the state land use boards would be now evolving policies and implementing them and urged the boards to conduct a scientific study of resources like soil, water, plant and animal sub-system.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.