A separate Ministry for Fisheries and Fisher Welfare is required at the Central Government to do justice to the needs of the sector.

• In India, Fisheries, at present constitute only one division among three divisions belonging to the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairy and Fisheries, which in it's turn is only one department among three departments functioning under the Ministry of Agriculture. Even worse, the fisheries section of the department is weakly staffed, who are mostly generalists with no real understanding of the needs of a vast and complex sector of Fisheries. Increasingly, it is becoming clear to the fishing communities, fisheries administrators and scientists that fisheries development and management are not getting adequate attention from the omnibus Ministry of Agriculture.

• The subject of Aquaculture has witnessed a spectacular enrichment over the last decades. The horizon of the subject has been widened due applications of the microbiology, biotechnology, hydrodynamics, soil and water chemistry, genetics, GIS, post-harvest. The planning commission also adopted a forward looking and progressive, aquaculture plan for XII five year plan. The implementation of plans adopted by the international and national bodies need proper knowledge management system for externalization, internalization, transfer, socialization of technologies.

• Tacit knowledge can only be perceived by technical persons to make it explicit for onward transfer. So, the knowledge management can be done by a knowledge based organization structure comprising of cohesive technical persons. The department and the service rendered by the department should be recognized as technical. The end objective of the governance is to make a knowledge society.

A technical Director/Commissioner of Fisheries is required in all states and in NFDB and MPEDA to do justice to the needs of the sector for blue revolution and country's nutritional food security.

Need-for-Separate-Ministry-for-Fisheries-in-Government-of-India