SOUVENIR 20Th Anniversary Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (Government of India)
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'WH«wwipiii^5!^P)ipppp^-^!^^^,. r -wi SOUVENIR 20th Anniversary Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (Government of India) ISSUED BY THE ORGANISING COMMITTEE C. M. F. R. I. RECREATION CLUB MANDAPAM CAMP Beprinted^ from Central ^mm Jis^«ri«s §fs^ard| Institute 20t^ ^,nniveriaru. cTebruarif, 1967 SOUYENIR \i i"». ^^^Y, '"^ V ' '"^- -lift' '" Organising Committee Patron : Dr. S, Jones Convener : Dr. R. Velappan Nair Members : Sbri. K^ Virabhadra Rao „ K. V. Narayana Rao Dr. P. S. B. R. James Sbri. K. K. R. Kumar „ S. Rajagopalan „ G. Luther „ S. Swaminathan „ K. M. Mathai „ E. Sarangan „ M. Ganapathy Souvenir Sub-Committee Shri. K. Virabhadra Rao Dr. P. S. B. R. James Shri. K. K. R. Kumar ,, S. Swaminathan CITY PRINTERS, ERNAKULAM. CONTENTS Page M«essage s C&PK rhototfraphk nas Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute 1 Two Decades of Marine Fisheries ^Research — S, Jones 5 Organic Production in Indian Waters — R. Raghu Prasad 22 Exploratory Fishing — K. Virabhadra Rao 25 Fish Population Studies — S. K. Banerji 37 The Oil Sardine — M. S. Prabhu 41 The Indian Mackerel — G. Venkataraman 44 The Bombay Duck — S. V.Bapat 4S Oceanic Fisheries —• E. G. Silas 51 The Ribbon Fishes — P. S. B. R. James 58 The Flat Fishes — K. V. Narayana Rao 62 The "Choodai" — K. V, Sekharan 67 The Grey Mullets — G. Luther 70 The Prawn Fisheries — — K. H. Mohamed 75 The Indian Spiny Lobster — Af. J. George 82 The Pearl & Chailk Fisheries- A new outlook in Survey& Fishing — K. Nagappan Nair and S. Mahadevan 87 The Phytoplankton — R. Subrahmanyan 89 Fisheries Oceanography — C. P. Ramamirtham 94 The Mud Banks of the West Coast of India — D, Sadananda Rao 99 Ocean Currents* —A.V. SuryanWayana Murty 103 Fisheries and Weather —G. S. Sharma 108 Salt-Water Fish Culture in India — P. R. Sadasivan Tampi 112 Physiological Studies in Relation to Fisheries — M. Narayanan Kutty 117 Corals — C. S. Gopinatha Pillai 121 Seaweed Resources of India — Af. Umamaheswara Rao 125 Statistics in Fishery Research and Survey — O. Chakraborty 130 Appendices: I. Statistics of fishermen population and fishing craft II-A. Composition of marine fish landings B. Histogram - total marine fish landings III. Export of marine products 1960-1966 IV. Export of prawns and lobster tails V. Progress of fishing boat mechanisation VI. Mechanisation of fishing boats - Maharashtra State VI [. Tagging Programme i. Lobsters ii. Mackerel iii. Oil Sardine VIII. Tagging notifications (Lobsters, Oil Sardine & Mackerel) IX. Areas covered during research cruises of R, V. KALAVA X, Areas covered during research cruises of P. V. VARUM A i. Arabian Sea ii. Bay of Bengal iii. Indian Ocean ' XI. Cyclone havoc in Institute campus - 1964 XII. Seaweed resources of India AaQenuum: Bibliography of the publications of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (1947 to 1967) Author Index for the bibliography Contributions submitted for publication in scientific periodicals New genera and species described by Scientists of the Institute New distributional records of species for Indian Waters reported by Scientists of the Institute Advertisements Index to Advertisers Acknowledgements Dr. BAINI PRASHAD First Fisheries Development Adviser who was responsible for the establishment of the Fishery Research Institutes Dr. H. SRINIVASA RAO First Chisf Research Officer (1947-1950) 1 Dr. S. JoNRS Director (1957-) Dr. N. K. PANIKKAR Chief Research Officer (1950-1957) \ The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute Until the early forties of this Century fisheries has been a transferred subject, research and development being the concern of the then existing provinces and states. Except for the enactment of the "Indian Fisheries Act" of 1897 the Government of India had no direct interest in the fishgries of the country. The fisheries departments as they existed then were mainly revenue minded. However, studies on fishes and other aquatic fauna were being carried out by the Surgeon-Naturalists of the Marine Survey of India and the Ofiicers of the Zoological Survey of India. Work on some aspects of aquatic sciences was being conducted in a number of Universities also. Lack of supply of adequate quantities of good quality fish during the Second World War especially for the British, American and other Allied army personnel was mainly res ponsible for awakening the Government of India to the need for taking direct interest in the research, development and conservation of the fishery resources of the country. The immediate result of this was the initiation of some research schemes by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The proposal for the establishment of a Central Fisheries Research Institute in India was first made in 1943 by Dr. Baini Prashad, who was then Director of the Zoological Survey of India, in his Memorandum on the "Post-war Development of Indian Fisheries". In the opening para of this historical document he has stated as follows: "I recommend that a central Fishery Research Institute be established by the Government of India on lines similar to those of the Agricultural Research Institute at New Delhi, the Veterinary Research Institute at Mukteswarand Izatnagar and the Forest Research Institute at Dehi-a Dun. Agriculture including veterinary work, and forestry are, like fisheries, transferred subjects; but the Government of India are main taining fully equipped and well-stafl'ed research institutes for the study of the problems connected with these subjects, and there seems to be no reason why the development of Indian fisheries, which in their importance are second only to agriculture and animal husbandry, should not be taken up along similar lines." The proposals till then had been that the Central Government should promote studies on fish and fisheries by strengthening the staff of the Zoological Survey of India to give expert advice in fisheries to local governments and others as per the recommendations •contained in the Report of the Industrial Commission of 1916-1918. The above view lingered for decades with some modifications till Dr. Baini Prashad in his Memorandum cate gorically and rightly stated he is "definitely of the opinion that it would be best if a separate central Research Department of Fisheries of the Government of India is constituted instead of tagging it on to the Zoological Survey of India", and that "it would not be in the best interests of fishery research in India to make it a subsidiary of the activities of the Zoologi cal Survey of India." The above recommendation first paved the way for considering the establishment of a central fisheries research institute and this was endorsed by the Fish Sub-Committee of the Policy Committee on Agriculture, Fishery and Fisheries in their Report in 1945. I Ultimately based on the "Memorandum on the proposed Fishery Research Institute" by the late Lt. Col. Dr. R. B. Seymour Sewell in 1946 the Central Marine Fisheries Research Station (as known then) came into existence in 1947. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute of the Government cf India under the then Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was established on the 3rd February, 1947 with temporary laboratory accommodation provided by the University of Madras at the Zoologi cal Research Laboratories at Madras and was subsequeqtly shifted to Mandapam Camp in 1949. Mandapam Camp is situated on the Madras-Rameswaram Railway route. It is 144 km south-east of Madurai which is also the nearest Airport. The distance from Mandapam Camp to Rameswaram is about 19 km. No motorable road existed then between Rama- nathapuram and Mandapam Camp and the only mode of transport available was the rail. The buildings constructed originally for the Naval Hospital by the Defence Department during the World War II which were lying abandoned in a dilapidated condition overgrown with thorny jungles and infested by reptiles were acquired and converted into laboratories and temporary residences for the staff at considerable expense and effort. Subsequently, an aquarium was built and circulating sea-water facilities were provided for keeping marine fishes and other organisms for study. About a hundred acres of land adjoining the Institute has been acquired for expansion of the activities and for building permanent residences which were completed in 1958. About ninety acres of land and the road leading to the site have been acquired at Mandapam Camp on the Palk Bay side for setting up an experimental Marine Fish Farm which, however, suffered extensive damage during the cyclone and tidal wave which hit this part of the coast in December, 1964 with unprecedented fury. (Photo graphs showing the damage sustained by the Institute then are given in Plates in the Appendix). The experimental fish farm project had to be abandoned partly because of this and also because the results of the experiments carried out were not encouraging owing to the unsuitability of the area for any economic fish farming. The head of the Institute is the Director. The Institute had as its first Director (then called Chief Research Officer) Dr. H. Srinivasa Rao, who was succeeded on his retire ment by Dr. N. K. Panikkar towards the end of 1950. On the appointment of Dr. Panikkar as Fisheries Development Adviser to the Government of India in April 1957, Dr. S.Jones took over as the Chief Research Officer. In 1961 the designation was changed to Director and simultaneously the term "Station" was changed to "Institute". The staff consists of one Deputy Director, a number of Research Officers, Assistant Research Officers and other technical staff in addition to the normal administrative staff including one Adminis-. trative Officer and one Accounts Officer. The scientific work of the Institute is broadly divided into three major divisions namely, Fishery Biology, Marine Biology & Oceanography and Fishery Survey and has a regionwise and subjectwise distribution. Since there is no fishery of any importance at Mandapam Camp the activities are necessarily decentralised.