(1) Standards for Aquaculture Seed/ brooders to be maintained by Aquaculture Seed Hatcheries, Larval Rearing Centers, Brooder Multiplications Centers, Fish Seed Farm or any other unit connected with aquaculture seed production for any aquaculture seed/ brooder to be sold in the State shall be prescribed by rules.
(2) The standards prescribed under this section shall be applicable to :-
(i) the Aquaculture seed produced in the State and sold within the State;
(ii) Aquaculture seed produced in other States and brought into the State for distribution / sales;
(iii) Aquaculture seed produced in other countries and imported into the State for distribution and sales in the State.]
3 [12. Regulation of sale of Aqua-culture seeds and brooders – (1) After enactment of this Act, all the aquaculture seed / brooders intended / offered to be sold in the State shall comply with the quality prescribed under section 11 of this Act.
(2) With the approval of the State Level Seed Committee, the Controlling Authority shall have the powers to issue instructions to all licensees to follow any method / procedure for ensuring the traceability of the brooders / seed.]
4[13. Powers, role and responsibilities of the Aquaculture Seed Inspector -
(1) The Aqua-culture Seed Inspector may,-
(i) enter and search the premises of any Hatchery, Larval Rearing Centre, Brooder Multiplications Centers, Fish Seed Farms Center or any other unit connected to the aquaculture seed production at all reasonable times, with such assistance, if any, when he/she receives any complaint or if he/she considers necessary, any place in which he/she has reason to believe that an offence under this Act has been or is being committed and order in writing the person in possession of any Aquaculture Seed/ brooder in respect of which the offence has been or is being committed, not to dispose of any stock of Aquaculture Seed / brooder for a specific period not exceeding seven (7) days or, unless the alleged offence is such that the defect may be rectified by the possessor of the Aquaculture Seed/brooder, restrict the stock of such Aquaculture Seed/ brooder from being sold;
(ii) take samples of Aquaculture Seed/brooder,-
(a) from Hatchery , Larval Rearing Centre, Brooder Multiplications Centers, Fish Seed Farms or any other unit connected to the aquaculture seed production, selling or offering to sell such Aquaculture Seed /brooder; or
1. Section 10 along with marginal heading substituted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.10.
2. Section 11 along with marginal heading substituted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.11.
3. Section 12 along with marginal heading substituted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.12.
4. Section 13 along with marginal heading substituted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.13
(b) from any person who is in the course of conveying or delivering or preparing to deliver such Aquaculture Seed / brooder to a purchaser or a consignee; or
(c) upon receipt of complaint, from any consignee or purchaser after delivery of such Aquaculture Seed / brooder to him/ him/her by following procedure prescribed.
(iii) send such sample for analysis to the Aquaculture Seed Analysis Laboratory;
(iv) in case of L. vannamei or any other speices, examine and count the number of brooders in a hatchery and verify whether the count of brooders is tallying with the imported brood stock or not;
(v) examine any record, register document or any other material object found in any place mentioned in sub- clause (a) and seize the same if he/she has any reason to believe that it may provide evidence of the commission of an offence punishable under this Act; and
(vi) exercise such other powers as may be necessary for carrying out the purposes of this Act or any Rule made there under.
(2) Where any sample of any Aquaculture Seed/ brooder is taken under subclauses (a) and (b) of clause (ii) of subsection (1), its cost, calculated at the rate at which such Aquaculture Seed is usually sold shall be paid in cash to the person from whom it is being taken under proper cash bill/ invoice.
(3) The power conferred under this section includes power to break-open any facility / container in which any Aquaculture Seed/ brooder may be contained or to collect the Aquaculture Seed/brooder from Hatchery, Larval Rearing Centre (LRC), Brooder Multiplications Centers, Fish Seed Farms or any other unit connected to the aquaculture seed production where any such Aquaculture Seed/brooder may be kept for sale and distribution:
Provided that, the power to collect the Aquaculture Seed from Hatchery, Larval Rearing Centre, Brooder Multiplication Center, Fish Seed Farms or any other unit connected to the aquaculture seed production shall be exercised only after the owner or any other person in occupation of the premises, if present, therein, refuses to allow collection of the Aquaculture Seed sample on being called upon to do so.
(4) Where the Aquaculture Seed Inspector takes any action under sub-section
(3), he shall, as far as possible, ask the Committee, designated for the purpose under rules of this Act, to be present at the time when such action proposed to be taken and take the signatures of the Designated Committee members on a memorandum to be prepared in such form as may be prescribed.
(5) The provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 shall, as the case may be, apply to any search or seizure under this section as they apply to any search or seizure made under the authority of a warrant issued under section 94 of the said Code.
(6) To ensure transparency in the functioning of the Aquaculture Inspector, there shall be a mechanism for inspection of the Aquaculture Inspectors as prescribed.
(7) The Controlling Authority may outsource sample collection task to any Technical Agency. APSADA shall issue identity cards to sample collectors employed by such agency and their details shall be entered on web-portal.
Such sample collectors shall be allotted sample collection tasks under randomization by computer software. These sample collectors shall carryout the sample collection work, allotted to them, on behalf of APSADA. The concerned outsourced agency or the sample collector employed by it shall not be having any powers of Aquaculture Inspector or APSADA, their job shall be limited to sample collection alone.]
1[13 A. Responsibility of Licensee –
(1) In case of L. vannamei or any other prescribed species, the licensee shall enter the details of imported brood-stock on the web-portal maintained by the Department of Fisheries/APSADA. The licensee shall also enter the details of discarded/ dead brood-stock on daily basis. At any given point of time, broodstock available in the Hatchery shall tally with the records on web portal. Any deviation in this regard shall be treated as an offense under this Act and shall be punishable as prescribed.
(2) With the approval of the State Level Seed Committee, the Controlling Authority shall have the powers to specify additional methods or procedures for tracing the brooders, the license shall follow such approved methods /procedures in addition to the procedure described under sub-section (1).
(3) Whenever Aquaculture Seed Inspector enters into premises of a licensee,-
(i) The Licensee or every person found therein shall provide the Aquaculture Seed Inspector best possible assistance in his/her power/capacity to enable the Aquaculture Seed Inspector to carry out his/her duties and functions under this Act and shall furnish him/her with such information with respect to the administration of this Act and the regulation as he/she may reasonably require.
(ii) No person shall obstruct or deceive or mislead Aquaculture Seed inspector in carrying out his/her duties or functions under this Act.
(iii) If any offense is committed under clause (ii), the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall take the assistance of one or two witnesses and shall discharge his/her duties.
(iv) In case if same offence is repeated by the Llicensee or occupier or any person found in the premises, the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall lodge a complaint in the nearest police station,
(v) Offence committed under clauses (ii) and (iv) shall be punishable under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and/or any other appropriate law.
(4) Whenever any Sample Collector authorized by APSADA enters into the premises of the licensee for sample collection, the licensee shall provide the sample after verifying the identity of such sample collector. In case if any doubt arises about the authenticity of such sample collector, the licensee shall cross check with the concerned Aquaculture Inspector or any other officer of APSADA.]
2[14. Accreditation and Certification –
(1) The Licensing Authority shall have the power for granting accreditation and certification.
1. New section 13 A inserted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.14.
2. Section 14 along with marginal heading substituted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.15
(2) Hatcheries /Larval Rearing Centers shall obtain accreditation & certification as per the prescribed procedure.
(3) With the approval of the State Level Seed Committee, the Controlling Authority shall be empowered to make Accreditation and Certification compulsory for any other unit, which is not covered under sub-section(2), by issuing executive orders.
(4) The Controlling Authority shall be empowered to outsource the job of sample collection, analysis or any other work connected with the accreditation and certification to empanelled Third Party Agency. Such empanelled third party agency shall regularly inspect facilities of such accredited units as prescribed.
(5) Procedure of according accreditation & certification, fee payable, documents to be produced by the applicant, duration of accreditation & certification and other terms and conditions shall be as prescribed.]
1 [15. Revocation of accreditation and Certification - Conditions under which the accreditation and certification is liable to be suspended / cancelled shall be as may be prescribed.]
2[16. Collection and forwarding of Sample –
(1) To prevent any sort of bias, the sample collection process shall be randomized. The randomization of Aquaculture Inspector / Sample Collector and Licensee from whom sample is to be collected shall be done by system generated randomization. The detailed procedure of randomization shall be as may be prescribed.
(2) In case if there are more than one empanelled laboratory in the area, the laboratory for analysis of the sample shall be chosen by system generated randomization process.
(3) The Aquaculture Seed Inspector is empowered to take any sample of any brooder, feed, live feed, chemicals, medicines, aquaculture seed, water, fecal matter of brooders or any other material from a licensee for the purpose of analysis.
(4) Whenever the Aquaculture Seed Inspector intends to take sample from licensee, he/she shall give notice as may be prescribed.
(5) While taking live samples, Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall take three representative samples of required quantity, shall preserve, mark, seal or fasten up each sample as may be prescribed.
(6) When live samples are taken the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall,-
(i) deliver one sample (1st representative sample) to the licensee from whom it has been taken under proper acknowledgement;
(ii) send one of the sample (2nd representative sample) to the Regional Aquaculture Seed Analysis Laboratory, for analysis.
1. Section 15 along with marginal heading substituted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.16 2 Section 16 along with marginal heading substituted by the Act No.36 of 2020, s.17
(iii) send another sample (3rd representative sample), for analysis to the empanelled Aquaculture Seed Analysis Laboratory for the locality from which such sample has been collected; and
(iv) If the licensee from whom the sample/s taken refuses to accept one of the samples, the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall send such refused portion also to the Regional Aquaculture Seed Analysis Laboratory with an intimation of such refusal and thereupon the Analyst at Regional Aquaculture Seed Analysis Laboratory shall preserve the refused sample and shall deliver it to the Aquaculture Seed Inspector in case legal proceedings.
(v) Additional procedures in case of brooder samples collected from Brooder Multiplications Centers or any other unit connected with aquaculture seed production shall be as may be prescribed.
(vi) The Aquaculture Inspector / Sample Collector shall obtain signatures of the licensee and one witness on a tag and attach the same to the sample in manner as may be prescribed.
(7) While taking dead samples, such as feed/ chemicals/ medicines or any other non-living material, the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall take four representative samples of required quantity, shall preserve, mark, seal or fasten up each sample as may be prescribed. When samples are taken the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall,-
(i) deliver one sample (1st representative sample) to the licensee from whom it has been taken under proper acknowledgement;
(ii) send another sample (2nd representative sample), for analysis to the Regional Aquaculture Seed Analysis Laboratory for the area within which such sample has been collected; and
(iii) send one of the sample (3rd representative sample) to the Referral Laboratory, for analysis as and when required. This sample is to be preserved at Referral Aquaculture Seed Laboratory by following standard procedure for a minimum period of thirty (30) days for analysis.
(iv) the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall retain one portion of the sample (4th representative sample) with him/her to use it as and when required.
(v) If the licensee from whom the sample/s taken refuses to accept one of the samples, the Aquaculture Seed Inspector shall send such refused portion also to the Regional Laboratory with an intimation of such refusal and thereupon the Analyst at Regional Laboratory shall preserve the refused sample and shall deliver it to the Aquaculture Seed Inspector in case of legal proceedings.
(vi) The Aquaculture Inspector / Sample Collector shall obtain signatures of the licensee and one witness on a tag and attach the same to the sample and sealed in the manner as may be prescribed.]