The potential marine fisheries resources and possibilities of exploiting the same to increase marine fish production

Marine fish production from the presently exploited fishing grounds remained somewhat stagnant, the average annual production for the past five years (1980-85) being 1.46 million tonnes. Therefore, it is imperative that additional production should come only by extending the fishing effort beyond the presently exploited zone and from underexploited resources. The EEZ of India has an estimated area of 2.02 million sq. km. Extensive surveys and studies in the past decade or so indicated the existence of several untapped as well as underexploited resources. Efforts are now needed to harvest these resources on an economic basis to increase fish production in the country