UTILIZATION OF BYCATCHES AND LOW-VALUE FISH IN INDIA

India has a coastline of 8 041 km with an annual marine fish landing of 2.97 million tonnes (1997). A totaI of 238 128 fishing craft are exploiting the marine resources of India and they land a large quantity of bycatch and low-value fishes. The percentage of bycatch varies from 70 to 80 depending upon the seasons. In recent times a sizable amount of low value fish and bycatch are brought ashore by traditional fishing crafts and medium sized fishing vessels due to the economics of fishing operations. In addition market for these fish is expanding. Bycatches are generally used for curing and manufacture of flsh meal but those of better quality are also used for surimi production and export as frozen fish. Bycatch is an excellent raw material for production of minced fish which can be exported and also converted into various value added products like hydrolysates, fish soup powder, fish flakes, moulded products etc. This paper describes in detail the methods of production of several value added products for the economic utilization of low-value fish, particularly the bycatches. BACKGROUND India has a coastline of 8041 krn with an Exclusive Economic Zone of 2.02 million lan2. The estimated marine potential resource of the country is 3.9 million tonnes (m t). The current level of exploitation (1997) is 2.97 m t. The annual fish production of the country is 5.35 m t with 2.38 m t coming from the inland sector. A total of 238 128 fishing craft are operational in the Indian waters. Of these 46 918 are mechanised boats, 31 726 motorized traditional craft and 191 207 traditional crafr (Anon 1996). The country exported 378,199 mt of marine products earning foreign exchange of around US $ 1 billion (1997). In the field of aquafarming India ranks second in the world and in total fish production sixth in the world. Various figures concerning fisheries of India are given in Tables 1-7