Efficiency and Capacity Utilization of India’s Marine Fisheries

Abstract

For decades, the problems of excess capacity and overfishing have been the subject of considerable attentions, since
they are the primary reasons for the depletion of fish stocks, reduction of the profitability and economic performance
of the fishery sectors at the national and international levels. As a result, estimations of technical efficiency,
harvesting capacity, and capacity utilization has become an increasingly important practice in the fishery, since they
provide useful information about the optimum allocation of inputs and outputs, and guide policy formulation to
combat biological and economic losses. Based on the Johansen (1968) definition of capacity we have examined the
technical efficiency, capacity and capacity utilization of the marine fishery sectors of the India’s 9 marine states and
4 union territories using an output oriented data envelopment analysis approach. The result of the study shows that
majority of the states/union territories have been inefficient and have the capacity to harvest considerably more than
what they have actually been harvesting by using the existing resources in an efficient configuration and showed how
serious the problem of excess capacity is in the India’s marine fishery.