Subarnapur (Gop): Seven years ago, 32-year-old Gyaneswar Sahoo completed his Bachelors in Law (LLB), but never took up law as a profession. Coming from an agrarian background, Gyaneswar always wanted to do something new, but he had never thought of becoming an entrepreneur or spending his entire life in his small village – Subarnapur.
But destiny had other plans for Gyaneswar. Today, he is a successful rural entrepreneur earning lakhs of rupees every month staying in his village, which is home to just around 60 families. Immensely successful in fishing business, Gyaneswar has adopted the latest technologies to ensure better quality fish seeds, while minimizing his business risks.
Earlier, Gyaneswar, who took training and technological assistance from the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA), Bhubaneswar, tried smaller Plastic Hatcheries to procure quality seeds on his courtyard. Now, he has constructed larger hatcheries in his village to produce more fish seeds. He sells these fish seeds to fish farmers, who, in turn, gain more by selling better quality and larger fishes.
“Like others, my family was also into agriculture, but diminishing earnings due to erratic monsoons, decreased production and other reasons forced many of us to give up farming. While many youth, who were into agriculture migrated to urban areas in search of alternative incomes, I stayed back with the desire to do something new,” Gyaneswar told Orissa POST.
Several farmers from Puri, Cuttack, Khurda and other nearby places line up before his hatcheries every day to collect fish seeds and fish fingerling to sell them at markets after rearing them. Today, he spends most of his time in the village taking care of this growing business.
“I came into this business accidentally and today I am successful only because of using the latest available technologies. They help me to ensure uninterrupted supply of fish products to my customers. Compared to conventional methods, these technologies help me to produce three times of what others are producing using traditional methods,” he said.
Talking about his fish seed business, Gyaneswar says, it takes about 100 hours for the Rohu, Katla and Mikral fish seeds to get ready for sale. Each set is sold for anything between Rs 500-Rs 1000 per set. According to this ‘Subarnapur entrepreneur’, unlike the traditional method of rearing, he used high protein and nutritious feeds that help in boosting the productivity of fish in his farm.
When asked how his business picked up market, he said, “I observed that there was a very poor supply of fish seeds that eventually led to production of less healthy fish. So, I decided to ensure very high quality seeds supply in tune of the market demands and it was a huge success.”