India rolls out digital fisheries census
Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying George Kurian launched the National Marine Fisheries Census 2025 in Kochi on Friday, marking a shift to a fully digital household enumeration in the sector. He also introduced two mobile apps—VyAS-BHARAT and VyAS-SUTRA—to support data collection.
The census will digitally record around 1.2 million fisher households across 5,000 marine villages in 13 coastal states and union territories, including Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. It will cover fishing crafts, gears, and infrastructure at over 1,200 landing centers, 50 harbors, jetties, markets, and processing units. Conducted by the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, the effort utilizes multilingual Android apps and operates paperlessly from November 3 to December 18.
VyAS-SUTRA allows real-time monitoring through web dashboards, ensuring oversight of enumerators and households. The census now includes detailed socio-economic data such as family income, housing, debts, credit access, insurance, pandemic effects, and benefits received under schemes like PM-MKSSY. Kurian also encouraged fishers to register on the NFDP portal to access government support.
