Single mom starts fish farming at 47; clocks Rs45 lakh annual turnover

When Subuhi Naaz lost her husband in 1997 after just three years of marriage, her life turned upside down. Her son was just one year old, and she had to find a regular source of income to sustain the family. A young Subuhi set up a small ready-to-wear garment store in January 1998 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, where she lived.

Her income was enough to lead a comfortable life and educate her son. But things changed for the better when her son Abdul Rehman graduated in Fishery Science and began working at the ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education in Kolkata.

“Abdul phoned me one day and explained the prospects of fish farming. He also guided me about applying for a project under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY),” says Subuhi, an arts graduate from the Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

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Today, Subuhi is one of the largest fish producers in Uttar Pradesh and clocked a turnover of Rs45 lakh from a production of 36.4 tonnes (36,400 kg) in FY24. 

She produced 83.6 metric tonnes of fish between 2022 and 2024, winning the National Fish Farmers' Award 2024. “Though I did not know aquaculture (rearing fish in a controlled environment), I decided to try it on my son's advice in 2020-21. To learn more, I began visiting fisheries in and around Varanasi. I interacted with several fish farmers and received support from the fisheries department,” the 51-year-old woman entrepreneur says.

Setting up a fishery 

To avail of the PMMSY benefits, a farmer must own 10 to 12 biswa 13,500 sq ft to 16,200 sq ft) of land along with 25ft x 25ft tanks supported by oxygen and water supplies, filtration systems, a generator set with electrical connectivity, storage space and office space.  

For the fisheries project, women are eligible for a 60 percent subsidy of up to Rs50 lakh under PMMSY. 

The government gave Subuhi a subsidy of Rs30 lakh after project authorisation. However, her first challenge was to procure enough land to meet the PMMSY guidelines. 

“People were reluctant to sell or lease out their land. They would wonder how a middle-aged single lady could set up a fishery project in a rural area when she lived in the centre of Varanasi,” she recollects. 

With a lot of assurance and conviction in her project, she purchased one bigha (27,000 sq ft) of land in Majhwan village, Sindhora, about 30 km from Varanasi. She built eight concrete tanks of 25ft x25ft on it.

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Subuhi began by raising Pangasius, commonly known as silver catfish, because there is a sizable market for this variety. 

Out of the 38,000 pangasius hatchlings she released in the tanks, only 19,000 survived due to lack of experience. “I was unable to turn a profit in the first year because half of the fish died,” Subuhi says.

Farming fish and revenues

She learned from her mistakes and achieved a very good output of 30.2 tonnes in FY23 and 36.4 tonnes in FY24 after releasing about 56,000 pangasius hatchlings. The Feed Conversion Ratio or FCR, ranged from 1.4 to 1.6 kg, implying that for every one kilogram of fish at harvest they were given 1.4 to 1.6 kg of feed. 

Pangasius can tolerate low dissolved oxygen content in the water and can be cultured in ponds, concrete tanks, fish cages or pens. Pangasius farming is gaining popularity due to good market demand, fast growth rate and production limited to a few countries.

Subuhi sources fry (young fish) from the wholesale fish market in Naihati, West Bengal. The cost per fry varies from Re 1 to Rs 20 depending on its size while the pangasius fish sells at Rs120 to Rs140 per kg.

The small-sized fry has a volume of 500 pieces per kilogramme, whereas the large-sized fry weighs just 10 pieces per kilogramme. The pangasius are fed twice a day with a fixed quantity of food. A fish weighing 100 grams is fed only 8 grams of readymade fish feed together with rice bran and mahua oil cake.

The fish is harvested twice a year -- in September and May. Pangasius weighs 800 gm to 1 kg on average. “I made Rs2 lakh in profit from selling fish worth Rs16 lakh to the local fish dealers,” she says. 

In 2023, she leased five more ponds for 10 years and started rearing other fish species, including Grass Carp, Mrigal (White Carp), Catla (Labeo Catla) and Rohu (Labeo Rohita). 

Rising demand 

India is the second-largest fish-producing nation as the industry reached a record 17.54 million tonnes of output in FY 2023–24, a quantum jump from 0.7 tonnes in 1950-51.

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According to Subuhi, fish farming requires a good knowledge of RAS (Recirculating aquaculture systems) as water exchange is limited in ponds and biofiltration is required to reduce ammonia toxicity. “If one does not possess the technical know-how of RAS, success in fish farming can be elusive,” she says.

“We closely monitor the water quality, gas formation, fish feed, medication, and other details to maximise output,” she says. 

Eight men work full-time and around 25 are indirectly involved in taking care of the ponds,” she says.  

July 10 is National Fish Farmers Day in honour of Dr Hiralal Choudhury, who led the Blue Revolution in India. This year, 12 recipients from eight states were felicitated, including Subuhi. The Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), Barrackpore, Kolkata, hosted the award ceremony. 

Dr B. K. Das, Director of CIFRI, said: “Inland fisheries contribute to livelihood support, economic expansion and nutritional security. The players in this industry ought to use the enormous untapped potential that still exists.” 

The West Bengal government's Minister of Fisheries, Biplab Roy Chowdhury, advised fish farmers to take action to increase production using the resources at their disposal, use CIFRI-developed technology, and make use of PMMSY's need-based funding support.  

(Partho Burman is a Kolkata-based award-winning journalist. He writes inspiring human interest and motivational stories.)

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