Impact of fisheries development programmes on livelihoods: A perception-based analysis of fish farmers in Chhattisgarh, India

A study was conducted to analyse the impact of fisheries development programmes on the livelihoods of fish farmers in Chhattisgarh State of India, based on their perceptions. A total of 120 beneficiaries were selected from 4 blocks of Raipur District viz., Tilda, Abhanpur, Dharsiwa and Arang. Data were collected using an interview schedule and the impact was assessed across five livelihood capitals using before-and-after scores. Appropriate statistical tests were performed to test the differences between the scores. Study revealed that fish farmers have benefited from these fisheries’ development programmes, reporting improvements across all five livelihood capitals. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test revealed a significant difference between before-and-after scores for all livelihood capitals at 5% level of significance. The highest change was observed in physical capital (39.69%), followed by natural capital (37.20%), financial capital (29.64%), human capital (25.83%) and social capital (24.58%). These findings suggest that fisheries development programmes have positively impacted all livelihood capitals of fish farmers. Keywords: Chhattisgarh, Fisheries schemes, Fish farmers, Livelihood, Impact assessment