The National Marine Fisheries Census 2010 will commence from April 16 along all the coastal villages of the maritime States in India simultaneously. The Centre for Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), was carrying out a massive training programme for the enumerators from Tuesday.
During the programme, the participants were asked to fill in the details of the fisher folk in the given format. On completion of the training programme, the enumerators would obtain information from the fisher folk such as education qualifications, total number of crafts and gears, housing facilities, socio economic profile, demographic features, behavioral parameters, types of nets being used, problems if any, evaluation of fish catch, opinion about environmental pollution, impact of climate change and response to ban period on fishing, M.S. Madan, Scientist in – charge, CMFRI said.
Earlier the similar census was conducted during 2005 all over India. The census, commencing from April 16 would continue till May 15. About 2,100 enumerators trained by scientists of CMFRI would be employed for carrying out this exercise in various parts of the country. They would visit as many as 10.98 lakh fishermen families spread across 4, 050 fishing villages, he added.
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The total expenditure for the census would be Rs. 1.63 crore. The religious heads of the Churches in Kaliyakaviali, Marthandam and Uvari in Kanyakumari district had extended cooperation to collect details from the fisher folk recently, Dr. Madan said.
The data would be analysed by the scientists of CMFRI to develop comprehensive census database. It would certainly help in facilitating the formulation of fisheries related plans and policies in the marine sector. According to the census undertaken in 2005, a total of 3.52 million fisher folk were living in 7, 56, 212 houses spread across 3, 000 marine fishing villages. There were 2, 38, 772 crafts,out of which 58, 911 were mechanized, 75, 591 motorised and the rest were non-motorized.
Nearly 62 per cent of the fisher folk families involved in fishing operations did not possess craft. K.K. Joshi, District Level Supervisor of the programme and P.U. Zacharia, Senior Scientist, CMFRI were present.
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