Over the past five decades, the Indian
marine fisheries have been subjected to modifications
and development. The modifications
have transformed a subsistence oriented traditional
fisheries into a market-oriented semiindustrial
sector, with tremendous growth in fish
production which in turn has increased the total
revenue in terms of national as well as foreign
currency turn over. The fast development of
modern technologies in the harvesting sector,
coupled with the rising demands for Indian
marine products abroad have paved the way for
reaping incessantly the vast expanses of coastal
waters sometimes even beyond the sustaining
capacity of the habitat. Inspite of these advances,
it is disheartening to note that our present
marine fish production has been swinging around
1.2 to' 2.3 million tonnes during the past two
decades, with only marginal annual increase even
with increased fishing pressures, new innovations,
diversification, industrialisation, etc. Assessment
of the stocks of the major fish resources
in the exploited grounds have categorically
revealed that the stocks of target groups/species
of relatively high value and easily vulnerable ones
are on the verge of overexploitation and therefore
warrant immediate management measures. Today's
Indian marine fisheries thus face challenging
problems in trying to achieve the kind of
sustainability that will assure its own long-range
survival
