Abstract:

The fisheries sector occupies an important place in the socio-economic development of the country. The sector generates income and employment, provides livelihood and nutritional security to a large section of economically backward population, and stimulates growth for a number of subsidiary industries in the country, besides being a source of valuable foreign exchange earnings. In view of the increasing importance of fisheries sector in the national economy, the study was undertaken to examine the trends of capital formation in fisheries sector and its share in total economy. To examine the share of fisheries sector in the total as well as agricultural outlay, the contribution of central sector, centrally sponsored and states schemes for fisheries development, and the investment in fisheries research, the secondary data were compiled and analyzed. To examine the growth in fisheries Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) as well as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the trend lines were fitted with the exponential function to estimate the compound growth rates different periods. The elasticity of fish GDP with respect to fish GFCF was also estimated using log-linear relationships.
The study revealed that the share of fisheries in agriculture outlay increased from 1.74% during first plan to 5.62% during sixth plan and then declined to 3.7% during tenth plan. The share of GFCF in fisheries sector in total GFCF was almost constant around half a percent between 1970-1971 to 1985-1986 and then started increasing at a steady pace during 1985-1986 to 2002-2003 at constant prices, whereas at current prices, it was hovering around 0.6% up to 1995-1996, and it reached a high of 1.12% during 2003-2004. The contribution of fish to total GDP is hovering around 1% at 1993-1994 prices (constant prices) since 1970-1971. On the other hand, at current prices, the contribution of fish to total GDP was increasing from 0.63% in 1970-1971 to 1.2% in 2003-2004. The study depicts that the growth in fisheries GFCF has been maintaining a high level of around 9.5% during eighties and nineties. However, during seventies, the growth of fisheries GFCF was of the order of around 5.4%. If one considers the overall period from 1970-1971 to 2003-2004, it was found that the total growth of fisheries GFCF was around 8%. The lower rate of growth over the whole period may be attributed to the nearly stagnant trend of fisheries GFCF during seventies. The study concludes that the investment in fisheries research has been increasing all through the plan periods and the Government is giving some importance to this sector. However, there is still scope for more public investment in fisheries research to realize the potential gains of research.

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Date 2009/09/30

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