Never underestimate the power of engineers in today’s world. They can go any extreme and achieve something big in life. Vinod Yadav, an engineer, has set an example in Haryana by cultivating pearls in his backyard.
Vinod Yadav, a resident of Jamalpur village, Gurugram, is surprisingly earning more than Rs 4 lakh per year by pearl farming in a 20×20 feet pond.
An innovative idea came to his mind and he then implemented that idea that gave rise to a new evolution. Yadav decided to the pond in his backyard to better use and took to cultivating pearl across one bigha (or 1/5th acre) of land in his hometown village of Jamalpur. He is possibly the only pearl farmer in the satellite city.
Gurugram’s Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh said in 2016, Yadav and his uncle Suresh Kumar came to the District Fisheries Department to get information about fisheries.
He had a 20×20 feet plot due to which he could not afford fish farming on that land.
“In such a situation, District Fisheries Officer Dharmendra Singh guided him to cultivate pearls and sent Yadav to the Central Institute of Fresh Water Aquaculture, Bhubaneswar for a one-month training in pearl culture,” Vinay Pratap Singh said.
The confident Yadav expected a good start. Much to his belief, in a few years, his business clicked quite well wherein he started making lots of money. Today, he is making a profit of a significant amount of around 4 lakh.
Today, Yadav is cultivating pearls on almost one bigha land (one fifth of an acre). Gurugram is possibly the first district in the state to start pearl farming.
“Due to the good results, other districts are also working in this direction. A 50 per cent subsidy is also given to farmers cultivating pearls by the Fisheries Department,” Dharmendra Singh told IANS.
Preparing infrastructure for pearl cultivation costs around Rs, 40,000 and one session of cultivation takes around eight to 10 months.
The officer said natural pearls are formed by nature. On the other hand, cultured pearls are human creations formed by inserting a tissue graft from a donor oyster, upon which a pearl sac forms and the inner side precipitates calcium carbonate in the form of nacre or “mother-of-pearl”.
Yadav said: “Initially, we didn’t know anything about pearl cultivation except seashell. Fisheries officer Singh told us about pearl cultivation through seashells.”
