Abstract:

Employment status and opportunities in marine fisheries sector increased over the years inspite of growing mechanization and incessant replacement of labour intensive fishing technologies. Fish, being a highly perishable product, needs the services of several people for its fast movement from catching point to consuming point without deteriorating its quality. It provides employment not only to fisherfolk in fishing villages, but also to those hailing from adjoining as well as interior regions. The present study attempts to assess the manpower employed in active fishing as well as in secondary and tertiary sectors both from coastal villages and other regions. Macro level employment status has been worked out based on the well established assumption that every 5 kg of marine fish produced provides employment to one person in the harvesting and another 1.2 persons in the post harvest sector (Sathiadhas et al. 1997). The study indicates that about 12.5 lakh people are involved in active fishing in India while the postharvest sector including export and domestic marketing employs about 15 lakh and in tertiary sector there are around 2 lakh people. Among these, 71 percent of active fishers, 50 percent of secondary sector workers and 42 percent in the tertiary sector are inhabitants of coastal fishing villages. In secondary sector, around 30 percent are women workers of which 81 percent are residents of fishing villages in the coastal belt. There is ample scope of development of employment potential of secondary and tertiary sectors in view of globalization of economy. An additional export of almost 1 lakh tonnes of value added products in our marine exports could easily corner about Rs. 1500 cores of forex earnings and generate regular employment opportunity for about 35,000 fisherfolk.

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Date 2009/09/30

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