Due to climate change and anthropogenic activities such as juvenile fishing, overfishing, unscientific fishing, the catch of marine fisheries shows a declining trend in the last decade.
It is estimated that Kerala has already attained an optimum-level of production in marine fish resources. Thus, it is high time that the state tap into its potential in developing the inland fisheries sector.
A total of 1.58 lakh fish workers and 21,743 allied fish workers were provided support under the 'Saving cum Relief Scheme'.
Due to climate change and anthropogenic activities such as juvenile fishing, overfishing, unscientific fishing, the catch of marine fisheries shows a declining trend in the last decade.
1619 homeless fisher families received new houses under the LIFE Mission.
About 200 fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) vessels were provided to fishermen as part of the Blue Revolution scheme.
A new mobile app called 'Sagara' was developed to record the departure and return of fishing vessels at sea.
2.43 lakh fish workers and 85,543 allied workers benefitted from the Group Accident Insurance Scheme.
Employment was created for 230 fisherwomen in 9 coastal districts by establishing 46 "Coastal Friendship" (Theeramythri) seafood restaurants.
The aim should be to make fishing a safe and rewarding profession in the near future and the upliftment of fishing communities who are shown to be the outliers of Kerala model of development.
Without facilitating the catch up of the fisherfolk with rest of Kerala society, our achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will remain a distant dream.

1. Introduction
The fisheries sector occupies a pride of place among various sectors of Kerala economy, in the sense that it provides livelihood to a large mass of underprivileged sections of the Kerala society and at the same time is crucial in achieving the nutrition and food security goals of the state. The sector employs around 10.44 lakh people, with 2.4 lakh of them being inland fish workers. India being one of the largest food producing countries in the world account for about 7.58 per cent of global production. The fisheries sector contributes about 1.24 per cent to GVA and 7.28 per cent of GVA from the agriculture sector (Government of Kerala 2021). In 2019-20 alone the country exported around 12.9 lakh metric tonnes of marine products (Rs. 46,662 crores).
Kerala occupied the fourth position in marine fish landings in India with a production of 4.75 lakh tonnes. The state is blessed with a large number of fresh water resources including 44 rivers and nine major lakes which have a combined area of 1620 hectares. With a coastline of about 590 Km and an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 2.18 lakh sq. Km, the state has huge potential in the fisheries sector. The Kerala Marine Fishing Regulation Act (KMFRA) was amended to strictly regulate the fisheries sector, such as preventing juvenile fishing, and this led to an increase of 26 per cent in marine capture in 2018-19. However, the marine fish production showed a decline in the years 2019-20 and 2020-21, mostly due to the rough weather at sea. In fact, marine fisheries sectors across the globe are going through challenging times due to climate change issues, change in ocean temperature and the current rate of marine biodiversity loss due to exploitative fishing practises.
In this context this paper discusses the major challenges in the expansion and modernization of the fisheries sector in the state and reflect on some of the governmental efforts to overcome these challenges through various budgetary and off-budgetary schemes. The paper is divided into four sections accordingly.
2. Challenges
Perhaps the single biggest drawback of the fisheries sector in Kerala is that it is not able to capitalize on the huge domestic demand and is heavily import dependent. As in the case of food grains and vegetables, Kerala is deficient in fish production. While the total domestic fish consumption in the State is approximately 9.12 lakh tonnes per annum, or about 2000-2500 tonnes per day, the marine production lags behind at just 4.75 lakh tonnes per annum. Of the annual consumption, about 3 to 4 lakh tonnes (or about 60 per cent) is imported from other States or countries, especially for consumption in urban areas.
A major problem affecting the income of fisherfolk is that the share of high value species in the total catch is very low. Some of the common commercially important fish species found along the Kerala coast are White Prawn, Pink Shrimp, King Prawn, Scampi, Deep Sea Lobster, Mud Crab, Sea Crab, Green Mussel, Clam, Indian Mackerel, Seer Fish, Black King Fish, Little Tunny, Snapper, Malabar Reef Cod, Croaker, Malabar Trevally, Ribbon Fish, Indian Oil Sardine, Commerson's Anchovy, Barracuda, Pearl Spot etc. and many of these are endemic to the Kerala shores. Low share of high value species is evident from the fact that while Kerala's accounts for 13.3% of the total quantity of fish harvested in India, its contribution to total value is only 12.84% (Government of Kerala 2021).
As per data released by the Department of Animal Husbandry Dairying and Fisheries (2020) and by the Department of fisheries government of Kerala (2021), while a lion's share of fish production in India comes from inland fisheries (74%), we get to see an opposite trend in Kerala where production is dominated by marine fisheries (64%). Fish production in Kerala, in 2018-19, was estimated at 1.92 lakh tonnes from the inland sector and 6.1 lakh tonnes from the marine sector. of this, the inland sector's contribution is barely 20 per cent. However, with a rise of 6.3 per cent, the marine sector showed a moderate growth in its VOO, while at the same time the inland fisheries sector showed a substantial increase in its VOO (growth of 58 per cent). The inland fisheries sector remains underexplored and underutilized (Government of Kerala 2021).
Due to climate change and anthropogenic activities such as juvenile fishing, overfishing, unscientific fishing, the catch of marine fisheries shows a declining trend in the last decade. The marine fish production in the State in 2020-21 however shows a decline. This may be because of poor climatic conditions and rough weather at sea. The decline in marine fish catch is due to overfishing, indiscriminate juvenile fishery, and the capture of brood fish. The inland fisheries sector has great scope for further development but as of now remains underexplored and underutilized. The loss of man-days due to Covid-19 pandemic, accelerating rate of coastal erosion and rise in the average sea temperature also aggravated the stressful situation in the sector.
3. Budgetary response to the challenges
In the budget of 2022-23, an amount of Rs. 240.64 crores are earmarked for various schemes in the fisheries sector (Rs. 37 crores more than the previous year's allocation). The total outlay provided for the sector in the Budget 2022-23 is presented in table 1.

3.1 Inland fish production
The fisheries sector in Kerala is characterized by the predominance of the marine fisheries production over inland production, whereas the opposite is true in the case of the country as a whole. While the total marine capture fish production in 2018-19 was more than 600,000 tonnes, inland aquaculture contributed to just about 25,000 tonnes only. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) in one of its reports raised an alarm that the demand-supply gap for fish is only going to increase in the future. It is estimated that Kerala has already attained an optimum-level of production in marine fish resources. Thus, it is high time that the state tap into its potential in developing the inland fisheries sector.
Kerala, with its vast aquatic resources in brackish water and freshwater, has immense potential for developing inland aquaculture. The state is blessed with 44 rivers with a total length of 3092 km, 5295.93 ha of freshwater ponds and tanks, 65213 ha of brackish water areas and 46128 ha of backwater stretches that are suitable for aquaculture, pen and cage culture. The table 2 shows the major fresh water resources of Kerala.

The outlay earmarked for inland fisheries in the budget of 2022-23 is ? 8423.00 lakh which includes 7 main schemes as stated in table 4.

3.2 Aquaculture development
In recent times aquaculture has become a very profitable business, with elaborate cage facilities in inland and brackish waters supported by multi-species seed-production hatcheries. The proposed aquaculture activities include (with an expected outcome of 45000 tonnes of aquaculture production):
•    One paddy - one fish/shrimp farming;
•    Farming of shrimp, crab and mussel
•    Farming of carp, Nile tilapia, Pangassius and indigenous fish in the pond
•    Intensive fish farming viz. aquaculture in bio floc tank, cage, Pond and Recirculatory Aquaculture System (RAS).
3.3 Reservoir fisheries development
The scheme envisages fish stock enhancement programme for small reservoirs, with it being limited with the seeds of endemic carps, endemic catfishes, Pearl spot and Mahaseer, in the case of reservoirs within wildlife sanctuaries. Also, it discusses the possibility of cage farming of fish in the case of large reservoirs. An amount of ? 200.00 lakh is provided for implementation of the scheme.
3.4 Social and financial security of fisher folk
It is estimated that the population of fish workers in Kerala is around 10.50 lakh, with 2.4 lakh of them being inland fisherfolk. The number of active fish workers, those fish workers who are engaged in fishing for their livelihood, registered with the Kerala Fishermen Welfare Fund Board in the State as of 2020 is 2,40,211. The Government has rolled out several schemes to ensure the social security and livelihood of fish workers. Such schemes are implemented by the combined efforts of the Fisheries Department, KFWFB and Matsyafed. The schemes include those for housing, insurance and pension apart from the ones which enable fish workers to earn livelihood on a continuous basis.
The Society for Assistance to Fisherwomen (SAF) has put in huge efforts for enhancing the entrepreneurial skills among fisher women by encouraging microenterprises. SAF offered assistance to 398 fisherwomen beneficiaries (138 groups) to start micro-enterprises. The government showed support to 242 Theeramythri activity groups which have been assisted with interest free working capital in 2020-21.
a) Saving cum relief scheme (2017-18)
This scheme was designed so as to provide the fishermen with lean seasonal relief. The beneficiaries will receive a total amount of Rs.1500 each, in six instalments of ?250 per month. Both the state and the central governments make an equal payment of ?1500 each.
A total of 1.58 lakh fish workers and 21,743 allied fish workers were provided support under the 'Saving cum Relief Scheme'.