Fishery resources of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the northwest coast of India

For well over two decades now, trawling operations, both exploratory and commercial, have been going on along the north-western region, off the Goa, Maha rashtra and Gujarat coasts (15°-24°N). A historical resimie of trawling in India has been given by Jayaraman et al. (1959) in their account of the demersal fishery resources of the shelf waters of this area, for the period 1950 to 1955. Similar accoimts on the distribution patterns of major exploited fisheries for 1961-1967 and 1968-1970, have been given by Rao (1969) and Rao et al. (1966, 1972) and Nair (1974). Apart from the above accoimts on the fisheries in general, detailed studies on the pattern of distribution and abundance of individual species have been reported by Rao (1965— Pseudosciaena' diacanthus), Kagwade (1973—Polynemus heptadactylus), Deshmukh (1973—Pomadasys hasta), Kaikini (1974—Lactarius lactarius) and Kagwade {1966—prawns), as also (Prabhu and Dhawan, 1974)— regional fisheries off Goa. The results of these studies, based on bottom-trawling operations mostly in regions less than 80 metres in depth, have given us a fair knowledge of the demersal resources potential of this region.