Blue Revolution in India – UPSC

• The Blue Revolution is a package of measures to raise the output of fish and marine products, through new methods of breeding, rearing, marketing and export.
• India’s fish output grew from about 7.5 lakh tonnes in 1950-51 to 197.75 lakh tonnes in 2024-25, making it the world’s second-largest producer, with about 8% of global output.
• Fisheries form about 7.43% of agricultural Gross Value Added and support nearly three crore livelihoods.
• Growth has come mainly from inland aquaculture, while the sea catch, the leading living part of India’s marine resources, has risen slowly.

Meaning and Growth

Objectives

• Raise total fish production in a responsible and sustainable manner for economic prosperity.
• Modernise fisheries, with a special focus on new technologies.
• Ensure food and nutritional security.
• Generate employment and export earnings.
• Ensure inclusive development, and empower fishers and aquaculture farmers.

How It Developed

• 1957: Hiralal Chaudhuri and K. H. Alikunhi achieved the induced breeding of major carps at Angul in Odisha on 10 July, now National Fish Farmers’ Day. This assured a supply of seed for fish farming, and Chaudhuri is often called the architect of the Blue Revolution.
• 1973-74: the Fish Farmers Development Agencies (FFDAs) began with central sponsorship, and they took freshwater fish culture to the districts.
  • The network reached 429 FFDAs, which brought about 1,05,060 hectares under fish culture in 2010-11.
• Seventh Plan (1985–90): the period usually named as the launch of the Blue Revolution, when the Brackish Water Fish Farmers Development Agencies were added to develop coastal aquaculture.
• 2015-16: the Blue Revolution became a formal central scheme, followed by the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana in 2020.
• Transformation: motorised boats and big trawlers replaced many hand-driven craft, and refrigeration and fast transport opened new markets.
• Shrimp production rose enormously. Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu developed it in a big way, and the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh earned the name “Shrimp Capital of India”.

Species

• Over 1,800 species of fish are found in India’s seas and inland waters, and only a few have commercial value.
• Sea fish: catfish, herring, mackerel, perches, mullets, Indian salmon, shellfish, eels, anchovies and dorab. Also shark, sardine, Bombay duck, ribbon fish and pomfret.
• Freshwater fish: catfish, loaches, eels, herrings, featherbacks, mullets, carps, prawns, murrels and anchovies.
• Value of fish: rich in protein and in vitamins A, B and D. Inedible fish feeds livestock, and scales and wastes make manure.

Production

• These are 2017-18 figures, when inland fish made up about 71% of output and marine fish 29%.

• Inland passed marine in 2000-01 and has stayed ahead since. Older shares of 65% inland and 35% marine belong to the years just after 2012-13.
• Leading States, 2024-25: Andhra Pradesh, 55.39 lakh tonnes (28%), mostly inland, and West Bengal, 23.74 lakh tonnes.
• Exports: ₹16,597 crore in 2011-12, ₹45,107 crore in 2017-18 and ₹62,408 crore in 2024-25. Frozen shrimp leads, and the United States and China are the key markets.

• These are shares for 2005-06, when Andhra Pradesh included Telangana. Andhra Pradesh’s share has since risen to about 28%.

Marine and Inland Fisheries

Marine Fisheries: The Base

• The Marine Fisheries Census 2025, launched on 31 October 2025, is the first fully digital, geo-referenced round.
• Marine fisheries cover coastal, offshore and deep-sea catches, mainly on the shelf down to 200 metres.

West and East Coasts

• West coast: the older ranking ran Keralam (Kerala), Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Goa.
  • Boats work from September to March.
  • The broader continental shelf and the monsoon upwelling raise the Arabian Sea’s yield.
  • Main fish: sardines, mackerel and prawns.
• East coast: fishing runs mainly between Ganjam in the north and Rameswaram in the south. On the Coromandel Coast the season lasts from September to April.
• Coast shares: the east coast gave about 25–28% of marine fish in older accounts. In 2024, by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute’s survey, the west coast gave about 62.5% (north-west 32.3%, south-west 30.2%) and the east coast about 37.5% (south-east 26.3%, north-east 11.2%).
• Landings by State, 2024: total 34.7 lakh tonnes, led by Gujarat (7.54 lakh tonnes), Tamil Nadu (6.79) and Keralam (6.10). In 2025 the total rose to 35.7 lakh tonnes, and Tamil Nadu moved to first place.
• Species, 2024: Indian mackerel (2.63 lakh tonnes) and oil sardine (2.41 lakh tonnes) led.

Why the Sea Catch Lags

• Tropical heat spoils fish quickly, and freezing raises the price.
• The coast has few deep gulfs, bays and estuaries, compared with Norway.
• Monsoon winds and cyclones make sea fishing seasonal.
• A large vegetarian population limits local demand.
• Much of the fleet has been small and non-mechanised, working close to shore.
• Few ports have landing, freezing and canning facilities, and transport and markets are thin.
• The sustainable marine potential is about 5.3 million tonnes, and inshore waters are already heavily fished.

Inland Fisheries

• About 77% of output in 2024-25 comes from inland fisheries, including ponds, tanks, canals, rivers, reservoirs and freshwater lakes. Estuaries, delta channels, backwaters and lagoons add to the base.
• Rivers: the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Indus, Mahanadi, Narmada, Tapi, Godavari and Krishna systems.

• Bengal’s demand: West Bengal eats far more freshwater fish than it can raise, and it buys from other States, including Andhra Pradesh.

Aquaculture

• Aquaculture is the farming of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants under controlled conditions, in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s usage. It goes back to about 2500 BC in China.
• It divides into freshwater and coastal types, and coastal aquaculture divides into sea farming and brackish water culture.
• Research: in 1987 the Indian Council of Agricultural Research created the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (Bhubaneswar), the Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (Chennai) and a cold-water fisheries centre at Bhimtal.

• Newer systems: recirculatory aquaculture filters and reuses water, and biofloc uses microbes to turn waste into feed. By March 2026 the main scheme had approved 12,081 recirculatory units and 4,205 biofloc units.

Strategies and Policy

Strategies for Fisheries Development

• Research: the Indian Council of Agricultural Research runs eight fisheries research institutes, which develop ways of using aquatic resources.
• Training and survey: the Central Institute of Fisheries Nautical and Engineering Training at Kochi, with units at Chennai and Visakhapatnam, and the Fishery Survey of India, based at Mumbai.
  • Training centres for fishers also operate at Satpati (Maharashtra) and Veraval (Saurashtra).
• Refrigeration and cold storage: Chennai, Cuddalore, Kochi, Kollam, Kozhikode, Mumbai, Pune, Ratnagiri and Thiruvananthapuram.
• Fishing docks: Cuddalore, Royapuram (Tamil Nadu), Kandla, Veraval (Gujarat), Vizhinjam (Keralam) and Sri Vijaya Puram (Port Blair).
• Inland programmes: over 500 fish farms were set up by the Centre with the States.
  • District-level development runs through the FFDA network, and village panchayats may run local fisheries programmes.
• Model Fishermen Villages: housing, drinking water and community halls.
• Brackish water agencies give shrimp farmers technical, financial and extension help. Thirty-nine were set up.
• Insurance: cover for the life and security of fishers. It has now reached 3.3 million beneficiaries.
• Environmental data: the Government collects data on the microclimates of water bodies. Fish species maps have been drawn for rivers such as the Ganga, Yamuna, Narmada, Godavari and Krishna.
• Fishing harbours: six major ones (Kochi, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Roychowk, Paradip and Mumbai), 62 minor harbours and various landing centres.
• Marine Fishing Policy (November 2004): sustainable deep-sea fishing, security for artisanal fishers and ecological integrity.

Blue Revolution 2.0 (Neel Kranti Mission)

• The scheme, “Integrated Development and Management of Fisheries”, began in 2015-16 with a central outlay of ₹3,000 crore over five years.
• Coverage: inland fisheries, aquaculture, marine fisheries including deep-sea fishing, mariculture and all National Fisheries Development Board work.
  • The Board was set up in 2006 at Hyderabad, first under the Department of Fisheries in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, to raise output and coordinate development in an integrated way.
  • It now works under the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
• Aim: the economic prosperity of fishers and fish farmers, with attention to biosecurity and environmental concerns.
• Objectives:
  • Fully tap the country’s fish potential, inland and marine, and triple production by 2020.
  • Make fisheries a modern industry with new technologies and processes.
  • Double the income of fishers and fish farmers, through productivity, post-harvest marketing, e-commerce and global best practice.
  • Ensure inclusive participation in that income growth.
  • Triple export earnings by 2020, with the benefit flowing to fishers and fish farmers.
  • Enhance food and nutritional security.
• Outcome: output reached 141.64 lakh tonnes in 2019-20, and exports ₹46,663 crore. Both grew strongly, and both fell short of tripling.

Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana

• Launched in September 2020, with ₹20,050 crore for 2020-21 to 2024-25, it is the flagship scheme for the sector.
• Aim: to make India a hotspot for fish and aquatic products through policy, marketing and infrastructure support.
• It seeks to bring all fishers under farmer welfare and social security schemes.
• The Department of Fisheries builds a robust management framework through it, closing gaps in the value chain: infrastructure, traceability, production, productivity, post-harvest management and quality control.
• Allied steps:
  • Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (2018-19), extended to March 2026.
  • Kisan Credit Card for fishers since 2019, with the limit raised to ₹5 lakh.
  • PM Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana, ₹6,000 crore for 2023-24 to 2026-27.
  • National Fisheries Digital Platform (September 2024).
  • Rules for sustainable fishing in the EEZ and high seas (November 2025).

Financial Allocation

• Older allocation: the fisheries sector spent ₹804.75 crore in 2018-19.
• Older targets: 15 million tonnes by 2020 and about 20 million tonnes by 2022-23.
  • Output in 2024-25, at 19.78 million tonnes, came close to the second of these.
• Union Budget 2026-27: the highest yet, at ₹2,761.80 crore, of which ₹2,500 crore is for the main scheme.

Rural Works

• Farm ponds dug under MGNREGA have been used for pisciculture. The Act gave way to the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, from July 2026.
• Mission Amrit Sarovar: 1,222 of its water bodies had fisheries by February 2026.

Problems and Prospects

Problems

• Fisheries have grown strongly over four decades, yet pisciculture faces many problems.
  • Poverty: most fishers cannot afford good equipment.
  • Pollution: rivers, lakes, ponds and coastal waters are increasingly polluted.
  • Shrinking paddy-fish area: this has fallen under population growth, industrialisation and urbanisation.
  • Poor data: information on the environment of water bodies is inadequate.
  • Monsoon uncertainty: inland fisheries suffer in erratic years.
  • Marketing, storage and transport are weak.
  • Research and extension services are inadequate.
• The coastal regions need a Pink Revolution in prawns.

Way Forward

• The long coastline can become a strength of the economy through the Blue Revolution, and through the wider Blue Economy.
• India needs a more scientific fishing system, including freezing and packaging.
• The future lies in deep-sea resources, mariculture, reservoirs and value addition, within sustainable limits on the catch, since capture has plateaued across world fisheries.