Coastal Aquaculture and Mariculture

Unit 4 - Indian marine capture fisheries

4.1. Indian marine capture fisheries
India has a coastal length of 8118 km (some authors mention as 8129 km) spread over nine Coastal States and four Union Territories. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of India extending up to 200 Nautical Miles (372 km) has an extent of 2.02 million km2, of which 0.86 million km2 are on the west coast, 0.56 million km2 on the east coast and 0.60 million km2 around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The continental shelf of India has a spread of approximately 0.53 million km2. Marine capture fisheries production has been around 2.5 million tonnes annually. The rate of expansion of marine fisheries in India has been slow due to continued adherence to traditional fishing methods and delay in extending fishing activities to deep waters. India contributes more than one fourth of the landings of the Indian Ocean and more than half of the landings of the Western Indian Ocean.
Coastal Length, Continental Shelf Area, Number of Landing Centres & Fishing Villages
The following table shows the details of coastal length, continental shelf, number of landing centres and number of fishing villages of maritime states and union territories of India.

(Source: Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, 2005)

The total coastline of the country which is 8118 km is predominantly spread over the states of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The continental shelf areas of the country which is approximately 0.53 million km2 is largely concentrated off the coasts of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The number of fishing villages in the country is 3827, the bulk of which is spread over the states of Gujarat, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Orissa, Kerala and Karnataka, in that order. The number of fish landing centres is 1914 and predominantly distributed over the coasts of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Kerala and Maharashtra.