Journal of Oceanography and Marine Research
Open Access

Marine Fishery Resources

The fisheries sector plays an important role in Indian economy and its contribution to the GDP is about one percent. Export earnings from marine sector have increased from Rs. 3.92 crores in 1961-62 to Rs. 12,901.47 crores in 2010-11 with 11.8% growth during 2009-10. There are 0.99 million active fishermen employed directly and 0.61 million employed indirectly with the marine fisheries sector. The total fisher folk population in the country is 4.00 million and there are about 1,94,490 fishing crafts operated in the country for harvesting marine fishery resources (CMFRI, 2010). Out of this about 72,500 are mechanized crafts, 71,300 are motorized and the rest are non-mechanized. In mechanized sector there are about 35,200 trawlers. Fishing by all these crafts are concentrated in the depth zone up to 100 m. The traditional crafts and motorized crafts are concentrated more in the east coast (72% and 58%) where as the mechanized vessels are more along the west coast (58%). India is a tropical country with multi-species fishery in the marine sector. Various types of fishing crafts and gears are used for fishing from the seas. The development of fisheries sector in India can be classified into three phases. Prior to 1965-66 is the first phase when landings were mainly by non-mechanized indigenous crafts and gears and the landings remained below one million tonnes during this phase. The second phase is the period upto 1985-86 and the important features of this phase were increased mechanization, improved gear materials, introduction of motorization of country crafts, expansion of export trade etc. The last phase is the period after 1986. This phase featured intensification of mechanization, motorization of country crafts, multi-day voyage fishing etc. The average contribution from west coast is 67% and that from the east coast is 33%. The overall percentage contribution from the four regions are NE 11.4%, SE 22.0%, SW 35.2% and NW 31.4%. Pelagic fin fishes formed 55%, Demersal 26%, Crustaceans 15% and Molluscus 4%. As per the Silas committee (2000), the potential yield of marine fishery resources in the Indian EEZ is 3.93 million tonnes.