Indian Fisheries and Aquaculture: Present Status and Future Prospects

remained relatively stable over the past two decades while fish production through aquaculture has progressivly increased. The Indian fisheries sector has come a long way since independence (Figure 1) and has contributed immensely to the food basket of the country, with annual production levels of over six million tonnes of fish and shellfish from capture fisheries and aquaculture. India is the fourth largest producer of fish and is playing an important role in global fisheries. Furthermore, with production over 3.1 million metric tonnes, the country occupies second position in the world from the inland fisheries sector. In the last five decades, Indian fisheries have made great strides, with the annual production increasing from 0.75 million tonnes of fish and shellfish in 1950 to about 6.1 million tonnes in the year 2002, indicating an increase of over eight fold. The share of inland fisheries sector, which was 29% in 1950-51, has gone up to over 50% at present (Table 1). While capture fisheries have solely contributed production from the marine sector, aquaculture contribution in the inland fisheries sector has been significant in recent years. The production from capture fisheries in the last two decades has grown by only 72% i.e. from 2.08 million tonnes in 1980 to 3.59 million tonnes in 2000, but the aquaculture sector has shown a growth of 468% in the same period, i.e. 0.37 million tonnes in 1980 to 2.1 million tonnes in 2000. The country has also emerged as one of the major in exports, recording a peak during the year 2000-2001, earnings Rs. 5957 crores (US $ 1.25 billion). However, there has been a decline of 7.56% during 2001-2002 due to economic recession and steep decline in prices of black tiger prawns in the international market. Fish production (inland and marine) in major fish producing states is shown in Figure 2.