Antibiotic Use and Waste Management in West Bengal Aquaculture
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2014 highlighted the rampant use of antibiotics in the poultry sector and presence of antibiotic residues in chicken meat. Earlier, in 2010, CSE had also found similar antibiotic-use practices in bees for honey. We now travelled across several districts of West Bengal—a major fish-producing state in India—and investigated into antibiotic-use and waste-management practices in aquaculture. Our study shows that misuse and overuse of antibiotics is widespread in both brackish-water and freshwater fisheries in West Bengal. Our secondary research shows that this practice is common in other major fish-producing states like Andhra Pradesh. In states such as Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, use of antibiotics is slowly picking up.