Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute realized the importance of
crustaceans as an exportable resource and started concentrating on prawn fisheries
research and development since 1960s. CMFRI conducted a 'Symposium on Crustacea'
in collaboration with the Marine Biological Association of India (MBAI) in 1965 to get
an idea on the existing information on the biology and fisheries of Crustaceans. The
Institute also published 'Bulletin 14' entitled 'Prawn Fisheries of India' in 1969 which
brought to light the complete information on taxonomy, biology and fisheries of the
commercial species of prawns in general and penaeid prawns in particular. Since then
many studies were conducted on various aspects of prawn fisheries during the last 40
years. The prawn landings increased from 62,767 t forming 9.2% of the total marine fish
landings in 1961 to 4,60,028 t forming 12% of the marine fish landings in 2011. The sea
food exports gradually increased from 15,732 t valued at Rs.3.92 crores in 1961-62 to
6,12,641 t valued at Rs.8363.53 crores by 2006-07 and to 8,13,091 t valued at Rs. 12,901.47
crores in 2010-2011. Frozen shrimp continued to be the major export item accounting for
51.35% of the total foreign exchange realizations during 2010-11
