Technological base for integrated rural development; Keynote address

Abstract

For the last three decades our developmen tal efforts in marine fisheries have been towards increasing production in the capture fisheries, rightly so in view of the vast resources in the coastal waters and the continental shelf which remained to be exploited and the base for development was available in the form of the traditional fisheries. Therefore, our research efforts were also aimed in that direction. The Seventies has been a significant decade in the sense that, on a global basis, there has been a shift from the thinking that capture fisheries could be depended upon for a steady increase in production to the realisation that aquaculture has immense potential for development after witnessing the stagnation of world fish produc tion around 69 million tonnes over a period of three or four years. In India, too, we are passing through a stage of such stagnation in the marine capture fisheries with a production of around 1.3 million tonnes during the last three years. Although the Exclusive Economic Zone has good prospects for increasing production the efforts would be concentrated at a few centres in view of the sophisticated technology and high capital costs involved.