Highlights glaring gap in demand and supply of annual fish production
Noting that India ranks second in the world in total fish production, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu recently remarked that there still is a lot of potential to be harnessed in both inland and marine fisheries. He further said that with a modest start from being a small scale industry, fisheries have grown to become a very important socio-economic force for our country over the past few decades and currently provides employment to nearly 15 million people on the Indian coast. “India is the 4th largest exporter of fish in the world and the sector has been one of the major contributors of foreign exchange earnings”, he said and added that India should aspire to become number one in export of fish.
Observing that with the growing population and the increasing demand for animal protein, the domestic requirement of fish is estimated to increase significantly, Naidu called for bridging the gap in demand and supply of the annual fish production in India.
He opined that capture fisheries and deep-sea fishing alone cannot meet the demand and thriving marine fish culture is the way forward. Stating that over 8000 km of coastline offers immense potential for the development of mariculture, the Vice President said that cage farming is widely recognized as the most important technology in mariculture for increasing fish production.
