Marine Fish Production in India 1950 – 1968

The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, since its inception in 1947, has realised the importance of collecting fish landing data on an all-India basis. In the initial stages, with only a limited number of field staff, data were collected from twelve coastal survey zones covering the entire east and west coast fish landing centres. With the expansion of the fishery resources survey schemes during the Plan periods a full fledged all the year-round sampling survey to obtain monthly and annual estimates of total marine fish landings and their group-wise composition was initiated for each maritime state. The estimates are based on the fishing effort expended in terms of man-hours and the number of fishing units of different types operated from each landing centre in a specified time. The sample survey design is a space-time stratification which was evolved after years of field-trials to suit the very special conditions prevailing in this country. It may be pointed out that since the fish are landed at innumerable centres at almost all hours round the year, it is extremely difficult to obtain a resonably accurate estimate. However, every effort has been made to reduce the percentage of error in these estimates by suitable modification of the sampling designs from time to time. At intervals of about five years, census figures on the number of fishing villages, fishing population, craft and gear are collected by the Institute on a complete enumeration basis