Ornamental Fisheries Training and Research Institute (OFTRI) was established by Dr. Atul Kumar Jain in 2006 as a privately-owned institute which is presently governed as a trust. The founder was a “Fisheries Scientist” at Central Institute of Fisheries Education (Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi) Mumbai, a pioneering institute of higher education of fisheries in Asia, for 23 years prior to setting up of OFTRI. He quit that highly paid job and respectable position at an early age to test his entrepreneurship skills and promote the hobby of ornamental fish keeping. The venture began with setting up of a small commercial unit of ornamental fish production at village Veerpura in district Udaipur Rajasthan. It was the only commercial ornamental fish production facility in northern India at that time.
The production facility was later strengthened with the financial support of Marine Products Export Development Authority (Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India), Cochin, Kerala.
It was realized by Dr Jain that the hobby of ornamental fish keeping is growing very slowly in the country mainly due to lack of qualified and trained entrepreneurs in the profession. Therefore, the production facility was upgraded into a training centre which was later recognized by different government agencies as a nodal centre of skill development training in the field of ornamental fisheries. The production-cum-training facility presently covers a total area of 18 acres and equipped with excellent infrastructure facilities of ornamental fish breeding, production and training.
The OFTRI was also awarded the status of Project Monitoring Unit for Ornamental Fisheries Development by National Fisheries Development Board (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare, Government of India), Hyderabad. It empowered the institute to monitor ornamental fisheries development projects being implemented in different states of the country with the funding support of NFDB.
How OFTRI helps a trainee
Learning Center
Audio-video based interactive classroom sessions helps in learning the basics of ornamental fisheries
Skill Development
Live demonstrations and field based hands-on training sesions helps in skill development
Entrepreneurship Development
Suggesting buisness model and preparation of Detailed Proejct Reports for institutional funding
Network Promotion
Connecting with other groups of similar business interest
