Feb 15, 2020
Marine and fish production in the country has increased by 6.6 per cent, thus taking the figure to 134.22 lakh tons (lt) in 2018-19, comparing 125.9 lt in 2017-18, as per the provisional estimates released by Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Giriraj Singh in Lok Sabha recently.
The state of Andhra Pradesh maintained its top position as the fish producing State, with a collective produce of marine and inland fish cultivation of 39.92. And it increased its production by 15.7 per cent over the previous year’s 34.50 lt, while West Bengal, ranked second with increased the production marginally to 17.70 lt.
Suggestively, Odisha beat Gujarat to come up as third biggest fish producing state with 7.33 lt. At 7.30 lt, fish production in Tamil Nadu too exceeded Gujarat which slid 13 per cent to 7.25 lt over 2017-18.
Quoting a Food and Agriculture Organization report, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018, Singh said that per capita consumption of fish in India is approx 5 to 10 kg annually.