Indian marine fishery resources - Present status

India being a tropical country is blessed with highly diverse nature of marine fishery resources in its 2.02 million square kilometer Exclusive Economic Zone with an estimated annual harvestable potential of 4.414 million metric tonnes. The marine fisheries sector provide livelihood to nearly 4.0 million people of India and meets the food and nutritional requirements of a significant proportion of the population. Also, it contributes to export earnings of the country. Sustainable harvest of the marine fishery resources are necessary as over-exploitation of the resources is likely to harm the diversity and cause reduction in the availability of some of the resources. Monitoring of the harvest of the diverse marine fishery resources of the country is being carried out regularly by CMFRI since its inception through a scientific data collection and estimation system from all along the Indian coast leading to fish stock assessment for deriving management measures to keep the harvest of the resources at sustainable levels