The marine fisheries sector in India accounts for more than 40% of its total fish production, is essential in supplying protein-rich food to the country’s population at less cost, and generates lucrative foreign exchange earnings through seafood export. Scientific stewardship of our marine resources entails constant vigil in maintaining the biodiversity and ecosystem balance. Strategies for the sustainable management of marine fishery resources are developed through the timely collection and analysis of scientific data on marine fisheries, especially the production aspect. Since its inception in 1947, the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR-CMFRI) has been tasked with scientific data collection and estimation of marine fish landings in order to monitor the stock health of the country’s diverse marine fishery resources and aid the planners to take an informed look at the harvest pattern.
Executing the acclaimed FAO-approved sampling design, the first-hand database of marine fish landings estimates for 2022 was completed in real-time using the Fish Catch Survey and Analysis (FCSA) online data collection application. The national-level sample survey through a multi-stage (two-stage) stratified random sampling revealed that more than 2 lakh boat trips landed the marine resources in 2022. The landings data thus estimated was used to derive species-wise, fishing gearwise and fishing zone-wise monthly marine fish landings estimates along with the consolidated state and national-level estimates of marine fish landings for 2022.
The estimated marine fish landings along the coast of the mainland of India during 2022 was 3.49 million tonnes, showing an increase of 14.53% compared to the landings in 2021. Compared to the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020, an increase of 28.02% was reported in the marine fish landings