A real crisis in Indian fisheries

India has a very large and ancient population of marine fisheries. Every day, both small and mechanized fishermen go out with trawl nets to earn a living and provide food for the nation.

The Government of India recently released its latest forecast for the country’s ocean fisheries (February 11, 2026). Its press release emphasized that India’s marine fisheries are largely sustainable, indicating that the country has avoided the bane of international fisheries, specifically overfishing.

Official statement

Based on data compiled by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), the government said most commercial fish stocks “are in good health”. It further stated that “91.1% of the 135 fish stocks assessed in various regions during 2022 were found to be sustainable”. If this assessment is accurate, that would be good news. However, there are good reasons to doubt whether this is actually correct.

First, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is much more reserved in its assessment of the state of India’s marine fisheries than the Indian government appears to be. India’s country profile claims that “India’s marine fisheries production has plateaued as most major stocks are fully exploited. (…) Unregulated access to these fisheries has led to significant overcapacity, particularly by medium and small trawlers, which compete for dwindling fishery resources with mostly poor small-scale fishers.” This report is not half as vivid as the one published by the Government of India.

I will not question CMFRI’s conclusions or its methodology for calculating “sustainability”. After all, most of his procedures are shrouded in mystery. However, compared to many other fishing countries, CMFRI is known to continue to rely primarily on landing data rather than stock assessments.

In other words, it calculates the availability of fish stocks in India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – which includes up to 200 nautical miles (371 km) of sea area around the country – based on what fishermen catch. Even a layman will understand that finding a certain number of shells on the beach does not necessarily predict the number of shells in the sea.

Other nations therefore use stock assessments at sea itself, calculating how much aquatic life is available in certain waters. This is clearly a more reliable method to determine the health status of fish stocks.

The Government of India cannot be blamed for not yet adopting this more costly form of inventory assessment. But it raises suspicions that the race to catch up with China, which is also infecting the fishing sector, may also be causing hidden distortions in the numbers.

Loss of coastal ecosystems

The consensus among fishermen I have spoken to over thirty years along the Tamil Nadu coast is that catches are steadily declining and that many species that were once available have disappeared. However, the government looks set to continue its path of increasing fish production figures year on year.

However, overfishing is not the central problem here. A more pressing problem is the decline, if not destruction, of the coastal benthic environment. Over the past year, many fisheries scientists and policy makers have described the inshore fishing environment as “destroyed”. What exactly do they mean?

India is surrounded by a relatively narrow continental shelf where fishing is always most productive. This continental shelf is widest in Gujarat and parts of Maharashtra, but remains relatively narrow along the rest of the subcontinent.

Generally speaking, the territorial sea – a legal category referring to waters that lie within 12 nautical miles (or 22 km) of the coast – can be assumed to largely overlap with the continental shelf. These waters provide favorable ecological conditions for commercially valuable species such as shrimp to feed, breed and grow.

But why do adult experts conclude that this is no longer the case?

This is a complex question with many answers. We can therefore point to the construction of dams in large rivers, which prevent the entry of nutrients on land into the sea. One can also point to the ongoing destruction of mangroves, where fish breed, and the pollution that enters the sea from various industrial, agricultural and urban sources. Many scientists, as well as fishermen, point to such changes to explain the decline of fisheries. These factors clearly affect the inshore fishing area more than distant waters.

Mechanized trawling and its costs

One of the many factors contributing to this decline is the dramatic and largely unchecked expansion of mechanized trawling.

First, it is good to remember that semi-industrial trawling is not the Indian way of fishing. It was introduced from abroad around 1960 and since then it has expanded to gigantic proportions.

According to the same government press release, India now has 64,414 mechanized fishing vessels. These numbers are growing every day because there are virtually no restrictions on new items. In addition, existing vessels are constantly being expanded and equipped with more powerful Chinese engines, allowing them to catch even more fish.

This oversized fleet of mechanized trawlers scours the coastal seabed continuously. In heavily trawled areas, this leads to the decline of all animal and plant life. It has also resulted in major conflicts with a large population of small-scale fishermen whose livelihoods are threatened. The problem is that regulations to protect the coastal fishing zone are almost non-existent. Yes, mechanized fishing is closed for two months every year to allow the fish stocks to rejuvenate. But the main tool to prevent unwanted trawling – the ban on mechanized fishermen operating in the 5 NM geographical zone – lacks force.

This has two main reasons. First, coastal states lack sufficient personnel or vessels to patrol coastal waters. Second, governments prevented fishermen from playing a useful role in management. As a result, the ecology of the coastal fishing grounds continues to deteriorate and all fishermen – both small-scale and mechanized – are pushed out to the coastal and deep-sea fishing grounds.

Rethinking fisheries policy

The Indian government is optimistic about the potential of deep-sea fishing and is encouraging fishermen to make the switch. But the question is whether this potential, which is also used by other fishing nations, is as rich as expected. The FAO estimates that “at best, only marginal increases can be achieved through the extraction of deep-sea resources”.

More significantly, India’s current fisheries policy is wasting the vast potential of its coastal waters. For one, it imposes additional fuel and technology expenses on fishermen to actually travel to more distant waters. At the same time, it closes its eyes to the urgent need for proper management of coastal waters. In addition to addressing the problems of marine pollution, this also means reducing, if not limiting, mechanized fishing from ships. This is more than a technical problem. Mechanized boat fishermen, by their numbers and their political influence, now often stand in the way of good governance. This is witnessed, for example, in the case of Palk Bay, which is located between India and Sri Lanka. There, an Indian fleet of mechanized fishermen now pirates the waters of Sri Lanka at the expense of small-scale fishermen on the other side of the international border. Ownership of Katchatheevu Island does not change anything in this regard.

The way forward

While the government’s assessment paints an encouraging picture of India’s fish stocks, a more fundamental concern remains. The bigger problem is that fishermen, scientists and policy makers continue to condemn the degradation of coastal fisheries. A viable and truly sustainable fishery can only be realized if the management of such productive coastal waters is improved. For this, the government must adjust its view. This is consistent with FAO’s view that: “Significant efforts are needed at the federal and state levels to increase the country’s capacity to manage marine fisheries.” In this context, CMFRI can also devote efforts to study what the actual state of the benthic environment is. This would provide a basis for consideration of the best way forward.

(Maarten Bavinck is Emeritus Professor of Coastal Resource Management, University of Amsterdam, email: jmbavinck@uva.nl)