Just as the Telangana government is planning to come out with a Kerala model road safety legislation, the Kerala government is readying to pay back the compliment by taking a leaf from Telangana’s success with inland fish harvest. While the exchange of development tips were inadvertent, in a happy coincidence, the initiatives from the two states have come about at the same time. “Kerala has been eyeing the technical and commercial expertise of Telangana in inland fish production, cage fish yield and fingerling production for some time,” Kerala fisheries minister J Mercykutty Amma told FE.
Telangana enjoys four times the area of fishing reservoirs in Kerala and the latter is yet to tap the resources optimally. In tune with the fast-escalating demand, Telangana has been able to double the fingerlings production to 40 million in just two years. “Telangana fisheries minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav has promised to share the expertise with Kerala at a meeting in Hyderabad”, said Mercikutty Amma. This teaming up would come about at a time when Kerala is launching Rs 69.9-crore inland fisheries project, with a target of generating 14.4 lakh mandays. The co-operation with Telangana farmers is expected to help increase inland fish production in Kerala to 25,000 mllion tonne and harvest Rs 1,270-crore revenues from the sector.
Meanwhile, it was Telangana ministers who first came up with the idea of synergy with Kerala on road safety. Telengana, worried by the State’s road accident dead toll of 7,000, has been considering enforcement of initiatives as in Kerala. Kerala has a Road Safety Vision in place which targets to reduce road accidents and fatalities by 50% within 2020, said Rajiv Puthaleth, secretary, Road Safety Authority, Kerala.
Compared to the last year, there has been nominal progress towards this goal in Kerala since the fatalities are down 6.5% and road accidents by 2.5%. In a meeting of high-level committee, comprising road and transport ministers, the Telengana government has decided to have a similar goal of reducing road accidents and fatalities by 50% within 2020.
