author(s)
Ghanshyam N Jha, AS Charak and N Paul

abstract
The soil of district Doda of Indian UT of J&K is very porous/sandy/silty/rocky and merely can store water even for a week, hence it is hard to reserve water by means of constructing an earthen type of pond. The water loss due to seepage from the earthen type pond can be controlled very much by poly-lining of pond. KVK-Doda brought ICAR-DCFR technology of constructing/converting seasonal pond into perennial pond by poly-lining under its Front-Line Demonstration (FLDs) programme and encouraged farmers for fish farming in these ponds. So far, we supported five poly-lined ponds to the five different farmers under front-line-demonstrations in the different villages of district Doda and stocked with Common carp (Cyprinus carpio). The average monthly growth rate as observed was 43.9 gm/month; final weight was 570gm/year with about 81% survival rate. The study of the cost/benefits ratio parameters indicated that there was an input cost (seed and feed cost) of about Rs. 1600/- (average) for one year operation of the above said pond, while the cost of the produced fish was about Rs. 13785/ per pond per year. Therefore, poly-lining of earthen pond or concreted ponds with cracks, are recommended for temperate regions where heavy water loss due to seepage is common. Poly-lining may not only ensure water availability round the year but can also increase farmers income several fold by providing table size fish to the market.