Fisheries

Fishery sector plays a vital role in the socio economic development of the country and recognizedas a powerful income and employment generator as it stimulates the growth of a number of subsidiaryindustries and is a cheap nutritious food besides being a foreign exchange earner. This sector contributesto 1.07% of the GDP, 4.69% of the agricultural GDP and 3.1% to foreign exchange earning to the tuneof Rs. 7,200 crores (2006) of the country. Fish is the primary source of protein for more than 1 billionpeople and fishing is the main source of over 100 millions of the world.In our country about 14 million people are employed in fishery sector and fish production has showna phenomenal growth from a meager 0.75 million metric tones in 1950- 51 to 6.4 million metric tonesInland: 3.4 million metric tones + Marine: 3.0 million metric tones) in 2004-05. India occupies 3rdpositionin fisheries and 2ndposition in aquaculture production of the world next to China. India’s share in world’sfish production has increased from 3.2% in 1981 to 4.5% at present. Fisheries sector considered as aSunrise sector has a recorded faster growth as compared to the agricultural crops and live stock sector.This significant growth is possible due to well defined plan, policy support, well developed infrastructure,valuable contribution by the research, extension and development support system.Fisheries sector may be able to mitigate the protein deficiency in developing country, like- India. Butreality is that fish is not contributing to the nutrition of our protein starved millions to the extent it should,mainly due to the gap between the demand and supply. It has been estimated that the requirement of

animal protein from milk, egg, fish and meat per person in the country is about 35 gms./ day, out of which50% (17.5 gm) is met by fish. The present per capita consumption of fish is 9.0 kg/ annum in India and6.70 kg/ annum in Asom against the desired level of 31 kg as recommended by the nutrition advisorycommittee on human nutrition (Srivastava, 1988). Fish is a very popular diet especially in the eastern partof the country, but its cost is very high for the common to afford