The visit was to plan the proposed case studies, the State-level Workshops and the consensus-building process of the DFID NRSP Research Project R8100 entitled “Investigating Improved Policy on Aquaculture Service Provision to Poor People”. It follows on from the “Rural Aquaculture Service Recipients and Implementers Workshop” held from 9-10 May 2002 in Ranchi, Jharkhand and the Inception Visit in March 2002. The reports of those activities are available in separate documents.

Meetings were held with GVT staff, jankars and farmers from communities in villages in Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal, and officials of Departments of Fisheries in Orissa, West Bengal and Jharkhand. Depending on location, discussions, reportbacks and documentation took place in Bangla, English, Hindi or Oriya. Meetings were also held in Delhi with GVT, ICAR and the Fisheries Commission. The contents of this report follow the progress of the visit (Appendix 3), the aim and objectives of which were:

• Contributing to “giving people a voice” in policy-making processes that have an impact on their livelihoods.
• Documenting experiences of rural aquaculture services provision from the perspectives of representative recipient groups in the form of case studies.
• Defining a process for consensus-building around a new scheme for rural aquaculture services critical to the development of rural livelihoods based on a wide range of stakeholder experiences.
• Understanding a process for transacting policy and institutional change.