Deep-sea opportunity: India must get the basics in place for growth

While the road map is ambitious, the present economic context too matters. External shocks often derail attempts to carry out internal reforms

India’s vast marine frontier, stretching over 11,000 kilometres (km) of coastline and 2 million square km of exclusive economic zones (EEZs), hides both untapped wealth and unaddressed weakness. In this context, a new NITI Aayog report, “India’s Blue Economy: Strategy for Harnessing Deep-Sea and Offshore Fisheries”, rightly calls out India’s underperformance in the deep-sea and offshore segment. The numbers highlighted in the report are striking. India has only four vessels owned by the Fishery Survey of India (FSI), compared to 1,883 from Sri Lanka and 1,216 from Iran in the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) region. Its marine exports, worth