Marine fish production falls 9%

Kochi: India's marine fish production recorded a nine per cent decline in 2018 with the data of annual marine fish landings released here on Friday showing a sharp drop in oil sardine catch.

The catch of oil sardine from the Indian coasts suffered a sharp fall of 54 per cent and fish fell to 9th position from the first spot, according to India's marine fish landing estimates for 2018.

The total marine fish production in 2018 recorded 3.49 million tonnes with a drop of 3.47 lakh tonnes (9 per cent) compared to the previous year, the data said.

This was mainly due to reduced catch in West Bengal, Karnataka and Maharashtra with a drop of 2.01 lakh tonnes, 0.95 lakh tonnes and 0.86 lakh tonnes respectively, said the data released by the Kochi-headquartered Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) at a press conference here.

Also, the date showed Indian mackerel (2.84 lakh tonnes) is the most landed marine fish in the country during the year followed by cephalopods (2.21 lakh tonnes), non-penaeid prawns (1.94 lakh tonnes), ribbon fish (1.94 lakh tonnes) and penaeid prawns (1.84 lakh tonnes).

The catch of sardine dropped to 1.55 lakh tonnes all over the country from 3.37 lakh tonnes in 2017.

While a steep fall was recorded in West Bengal, Karnataka and Maharashtra among the nine maritime states, Gujarat remained in the first position in the landings with 7.80 lakh tonnes followed by Tamil Nadu (7.02 lakh tonnes) and Kerala (6.43 lakh tonnes).

Unusually, the huge catch of red toothed trigger fish (about 72,000 tonnes) was another highlight of the estimates, with Karnataka recording high landings of this species.

The estimate of the value of marine fish landings based on price at landing centres across the country during 2018 was Rs 52,632 crores, with 0.4 per cent increase over 2017.

The average price per kg of fish at landing centre rate was Rs 152 (11.1 per cent increase). At the retail-level, the estimated value of marine fish was Rs 80,320 crore (2.4 per cent increase).

The unit price at the retail market level was Rs 232 (13.4 per cent increase).

The fishery resources assessment division of the ICAR- CMFRI estimated the annual marine fish landings of the country through its online data collection system.