The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute has dismissed fears of low catch on the Indian coast, describing it as a seasonal phenomenon varying each year.
The total marine capture fish landings in 2013 on the coast is less than four per cent, touching 3.78 million tonnes against 3.94 million tonnes in the previous year.
CMFRI Director A Gopalakrishnan said that the low availability of Indian oil sardines has reflected in the overall landings and there is no immediate threat to the fisheries sector going by the overall production of the landings.
Kerala can be cited as an example where the dip in catch is due to the reduction in the most dominant resource of sardines and there is no reduction in the catch per boat involved in fishing.
He said that the reduction is due to less number of fishing days due to weather conditions and the drop in a particular year is not a reason to panic.
Speaking to reporters after releasing the Marine Fish Landings in India for 2013 on Tuesday, he said Gujarat emerged as the leading State in marine fish landings with 7.17 lakh tonnes (lt) followed by Tamil Nadu at 6.88 lt and Kerala with 6.77 lt.