Deep-Sea Fisheries of India Vol. 2

Rao, G Sudhakara (2009) Deep-Sea Fisheries of India Vol. 2. B.R. Publishing Corporation, pp. 30-35. ISBN 9788176466561

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Abstract

India did not have traditional "deep-sea" fishing fleet like many middle east Asian countries although a number of far east Asian countries specialized in high seas fishing in the past. In spite of many efforts India could not enter into "deep-sea" fishing for a long time. With the declaration of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the associated compulsions, however, India was forced to exploit the "deep-sea" fishery resources in its EEZ and the development of infrastructure to develop its own deep-sea fishing fleet. As a result of these obligations India started developing a fisheries harbour at Visakhapatnam, which facilitated the introduction of "deep-sea fishing" fleet of shrimp trawlers of Gulf of Mexico design in a big way. With these developments Visakhapatnam became the hub of fisheries and different types of crafts namely, large trawlers, mini trawlers, small trawlers, besides a variety of traditional crafts using the already existing artisanal gears started operation from this harbour. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in its endeavour to develop computer programs to help the research scientists in various countries found the northeast coast prawn fishery suitable to test their Beam-4 program to assess the bio-economic status of the fisheries. Thus came up a project with the association of FAO, DANIDA, CMFRI, FSI and Andhra University, to study the Bio-economics of the Northeast coast Demersal fisheries, test the computer program Beam-4 and to conduct a work shop to train some scientists in Beam-4 application. As one of the organizers of the project I was asked to compile all the available biological data on the commercially important penaeid prawns, fin fishes and cephalopods. The 11-day workshop was successfully conducted from 8.2.1993 to 19.2.1993 with the participation of 19 scientists from different fisheries organizations. The "deep-sea" shrimp trawler operators were very happy as the workshop came up with interesting suggestions to save the large trawler prawn fishery. Later it occurred to me that the enormous data collected for this workshop could be used to bring awareness to the different people concerned with deep-sea fishing. As most of these data are available only with me and as the material will be useful for people who are interested in the northeast coast prawn fisheries including fishery managers, fishery scientists and the students at all levels, a book on the "deep-sea" prawn fisheries of India should be of utmost use to most of them. Somehow, this could not be materialized when I was on the staff of CMFRI due to my involvement in various projects of Crustacean Fisheries Division of CMFRI. As soon as I retired from service in CMFRI in June 2000 I started thinking about the book I was planning to write. In this process I thought of including all the deep-sea fishing activities which are least known to many people in the industry, state fisheries departments and the Research Institutes Although I could not take up the writing of the book during the period of my employment, I collected information on the deep-sea fishing such as chartering of foreign fishing vessels, participation of Indian companies in Joint ventures, the policy changes from time to time regarding these operations, poaching of foreign vessels in Indian EFZ and the operations of high seas fishing fleets of non-Indian Ocean countries in the Indian Ocean close to the Indian EEZ, policy decisions for optimum utilization and at the same time to conserve the resource for the sustained development of the industry. Thus the foundation for the book 'Deep-Sea Fisheries of India' was laid on a broader basis to include all the aspects relating to deep-sea fisheries including apart from the harvesting aspect, policy decisions for optimum utilization and at the same time to conserve the resource for the sustained development of the Industry. In the meantime Ministry of Science and Technology approved my proposal to write a book under the scheme' Utilization of Scientific Expertise of Retired Scientists' That is all about how the book has came out in this form. There was inordinate delay in the preparation of it because of the various family obligations that demanded my personal attention. It is sincerely hoped that this book will fill the existing lacunae in the available information on the deep-sea fisheries. It would be useful to students at all levels studying capture fisheries and in particular the offshore fisheries, to the managers who wish to enter this profitable venture in fisheries, to the policy makers to make practical decisions with wisdom and to scientists for suggesting reasonable and lasting measures of management to obtain maximum benefit from the fishery resources in general and the deep-sea fishery resources in particular. In this process of compilation of material on various aspects I am aware I have left out some points of interest. On some issues of fisheries interest I am aware I have expressed opinions generally not quite palatable at least to some policy makers. In this way I only wanted to highlight the good work being done and at the same time express my criticism when some directions are far from truth and misleading. During my 37 years of service I happened to get associated with dedicated scientists as well as people not so interested in science.

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