About 7,200 fishermen from Siddipet will be presented with identity cards on Sunday in the first phase

Siddipet: The State government will present identity cards to members of the fishing community in the State.

Finance Minister T Harish Rao and Fisheries Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav will begin the distribution of identity cards to fishermen in Siddipet on Sunday. About 7,200 fishermen from the district will be presented with identity cards on Sunday in the first phase. Siddipet district has 324 fishermen societies which have 24,000 members.

To mark the release of fish into tanks in the district, the Ministers will also release 52,000 fish into the Chinthala Cheruvu near Siddipet. In a statement, Harish Rao said the fishing community had become stronger financially in the last nine years because the government had started releasing the fish at the government’s expense into water bodies. Telangana had become a fish exporting State from an importing State a decade ago. The government had released 17.43 crore fish into 1,643 tanks over a period of seven years. The identity cards would help the fishermen to more benefits in the coming days, he added.