Centre’s projects to boost fisheries in 7 states, UTs

The Coastal States Fisheries Meet-2025 was held in Mumbai today. It was chaired by Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying and Panchayati Raj Rajiv Ranjan Singh, aka Lalan Singh.

The event was attended by Governors, fisheries ministers of coastal states and union territories, senior officials and Ministers of State SP Singh Baghel and George Kurian.

Marking a significant step for India’s fisheries sector, Singh inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of key projects worth Rs 255 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) across seven coastal states and UTs.

He also launched several major initiatives, including the Fifth Marine Fisheries Census operations, the PMMSY Guidelines on Turtle Excluder Device and the Standard Operating Procedure for Vessel Communication and Support Systems.

Highlighting a major digital leap, the Union Minister unveiled VyAS-NAV, a mobile application developed by ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) to digitise the Fifth Marine Fisheries Census.

This shift from traditional methods to a geo-referenced, app-based system aims at enhancing transparency, efficiency and real-time validation while covering over 1.2 million fisher households nationwide.

Supervisors from the CMFRI, the Fishery Survey of India and state fisheries departments will use the app for field verification of fishing villages, fish landing centres and harbours.

The Fifth Marine Fisheries Census will involve training supervisors, recruitment and training of village-wise enumerators and a three-month-long data collection exercise, to be completed by December 2025.

On the occasion, Singh also distributed tablets loaded with the VyAS-NAV app to field supervisors and awarded the first-ever aqua insurance incentive orders to beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana. The meeting marked a major push towards modernising India’s fisheries sector and ensuring inclusive, data-driven development for coastal communities.