Description

India is bestowed with a long coastal line of over 8,129 km, two million sq. Km of Exclusive Economic Zone with 1.2 million hectors of brackish water bodies (Marine and Earth Sciences Group, 2009). Before 1960's, the markets of Indian Marine Products were dominated by dried items and were exported largely to neighbouring countries like Srilanka, Myanmar, Singapore etc., The quality of dried fish never receives much attention (Gupta and Samueal, 1985) due to improper handling while processing, storage, transporting and marketing. This situation gradually changed after the development of number of techniques such as canning, freezing etc. As a result, the major seafood importers from our country are Japan, USA, Europe, Middle East, Australia etc. India exports more than Rs. 8000 crores worth of seafood every year. The South East Asia is the largest importer of seafood from India with a major share (25.75%) followed by European Union (22.02%), US (19.17%), Japan (14.09%), China (7.06%), the Middle East (4.39%) and other countries (7.51%), (FISHING CHIMES, 2012).