p>In India, about 40% of the inland salt-affected areas lie in the four states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Increasing inland salinity due to human activity over the years has made the land unproductive for agriculture. Shrimp farming was unknown there until 2013; in a bid to introduce the technology of shrimp culture and use the vast, unutilized inland saline-affected resources for the commercial production of marine shrimp, the Rohtak centre of the ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education (CIFE) successfully demonstrated the Penaeusvannamei shrimp culture technology in 2014, and three farmers adopted it over 25 acres of land. By 2018, the total number of adopters exceeded 350 over 785 acres of land. The average per acre yield was 2.2 tonnes and the net profit Rs. 3.15 lakh from a culture period of 100 days (making two crops possible in a year). With a very short payback period of two years, a benefit-cost ratio of 1.37 and an internal rate of return of 56%, shrimp farming in the inland salt-affected areas is almost a revolution in the making. It is estimated that each acre of shrimp farm generates gainful employment for about four people directly and two people indirectly. It is expected that in the future, the technology will have an enormous impact on the development of the rural economy and livelihood generation. Considering the possible ecological externalities and disease outbreaks, cautious expansion of area and intensification are suggested for long-term sustainability.
