India’s announcement that fish production has reached 197.75 lakh tonnes in the financial year 2024 to 25, more than double the 95.79 lakh tonnes recorded in 2013 to 14, is being celebrated in official statements as a triumph of policy engineering and rural development. The scale of the increase, a growth of approximately 106 per cent within a decade, places India firmly as the second largest fish producer in the world, contributing roughly eight per cent of global output, ranking second in aquaculture production, first in shrimp production and export, and second in capture fisheries. Yet beneath these headline figures lies a complex legal, regulatory and geopolitical structure that now determines whether India’s fisheries ascent becomes a durable strategic advantage or a source of environmental, trade and human rights litigation.
The transformation has been driven by an aggressive state led framework built primarily around the Department of Fisheries, created as a separate ministry in 2019, and flagship schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, the extension of Kisan Credit Card facilities to fishers, infrastructure financing for integrated aquaparks, and export promotion policies coordinated with the Marine Products Export Development Authority under the Ministry of Commerce.
In legal terms, the sector operates under a fragmented but powerful statutory regime. The Indian Fisheries Act of 1897 remains in force in modified form in several states, while coastal regulation is governed by the Environment Protection Act 1986 and the Coastal Regulation Zone notifications, most recently revised in 2019. Aquaculture activities are regulated under the Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act 2005, which mandates registration of farms, environmental safeguards, and disease control measures. Labour protections fall under the Inter State Migrant Workmen Act, the Occupational Safety Code, and state specific welfare schemes, while export compliance is subject to the Foreign Trade Development and Regulation Act 1992 and food safety standards enforced by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.
It is this legal architecture that has enabled industrial scale aquaculture to expand rapidly. Average productivity has reached 4.77 tonnes per hectare, a figure that rivals parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America. Indian seafood exports of 16.98 lakh tonnes valued at Rs 62,408 crore in 2023 to 24, and a further increase in 2024 to 25 to the same nominal value, position India as one of the most influential suppliers to markets in the United States, the European Union, China and Japan. More than 350 seafood products are exported to 130 countries, with aquaculture accounting for 62 per cent of export value, signalling a decisive shift away from traditional capture fisheries.
However, international trade law now shadows every tonne exported. Indian shrimp and frozen fish shipments are subject to sanitary and phytosanitary standards under the World Trade Organisation Agreement on SPS Measures. The European Union imposes hazard analysis and critical control point requirements and conducts regular audits of Indian processing plants. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration enforces import alerts on antibiotic residues, while the Seafood Import Monitoring Programme requires traceability to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
India has already faced temporary export rejections in past years due to chloramphenicol residues and mislabelling. A single compliance failure can trigger port detentions, reputational damage, and multimillion dollar losses. As India’s market share grows, scrutiny will intensify. Competitors such as Vietnam, Ecuador and Indonesia have increasingly turned to trade remedies and anti dumping petitions in importing jurisdictions. The legal risk of countervailing duties or technical barriers disguised as safety regulation is no longer theoretical.
At the domestic level, the government claims that fisheries schemes since 2014 to 15 have generated 74.66 lakh employment opportunities, direct and indirect. Group accidental insurance coverage has been extended to 34.71 lakh fishers with an expenditure of Rs 27.75 crore, and 4.49 lakh Kisan Credit Cards have been sanctioned with loans worth Rs 3,569.60 crore. Eleven integrated aquaparks have been approved at a cost of Rs 682.60 crore, intended to centralise hatcheries, feed mills, cold storage, processing units and logistics hubs.
These numbers, while impressive, conceal structural vulnerabilities. Most fishers remain informal workers, often seasonal migrants, with limited access to written contracts or enforceable occupational safety rights. Industrial trawlers and large aquaculture firms increasingly dominate coastal zones, displacing small scale operators. Litigation under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to livelihood as part of the right to life, has already been filed in several coastal states challenging industrial encroachment, mangrove destruction and water pollution.
Environmental compliance is becoming the sector’s most potent legal fault line. Intensive shrimp farming has been linked to salinisation of agricultural land, depletion of groundwater, and destruction of wetlands protected under the Ramsar Convention. The National Green Tribunal has repeatedly censured state governments for weak enforcement of effluent standards under the Water Act 1974 and the Environment Protection Act. In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, farmers have sued aquaculture operators for contaminating irrigation channels, while coastal communities have filed writ petitions alleging violations of the public trust doctrine.
International climate law adds another layer of exposure. India is a party to the Paris Agreement and has pledged to protect coastal ecosystems as part of its nationally determined contributions. Large scale aquaculture expansion, if linked to mangrove loss or methane emissions from ponds, could attract scrutiny in future climate compliance mechanisms, especially as carbon border adjustment regimes begin to include food production chains.
Geopolitically, India’s fisheries boom intersects directly with maritime security and regional diplomacy. Shrimp exports dominate trade with the United States, while China remains both a competitor and a major supplier of feed and broodstock. Disputes with Sri Lanka over fishing rights in the Palk Strait continue to result in arrests of Indian fishers under maritime boundary laws, raising diplomatic tensions. Any escalation affects supply chains overnight.
In the Indian Ocean, illegal fishing by foreign fleets has already triggered naval patrols and surveillance cooperation with France and Australia under the Indo Pacific security framework. Fisheries are no longer merely an agricultural commodity but a strategic maritime asset linked to food security, naval presence and regional influence.
The government’s narrative of success also omits the looming question of subsidy discipline. Input subsidies, credit support and infrastructure grants fall within the scope of the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. India successfully defended its public stockholding for food security at the WTO, but fisheries subsidies are now under intense negotiation. The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, adopted in 2022, prohibits certain forms of support linked to overfishing and illegal fishing. India has sought special and differential treatment, but future disputes are inevitable if export competitors argue that Indian schemes distort prices.
There is also a human rights dimension rarely acknowledged in official statements. Reports by international labour organisations have documented debt bondage in shrimp farms, recruitment of minors, and unsafe working conditions in processing units dominated by women workers. Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, importing states may soon impose due diligence obligations on supply chains. The European Union Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, once fully operational, will expose Indian exporters to liability in European courts for labour abuses occurring in aquaculture facilities.
The fisheries boom therefore stands at a legal crossroads. On one path lies formalisation, strict environmental enforcement, labour regulation, traceability, and compliance with international trade norms. On the other lies a cycle familiar from extractive industries: short term output growth followed by litigation, trade sanctions, ecological collapse and social unrest.
From a constitutional perspective, the Indian state bears a positive obligation to balance economic development with environmental protection and social justice, a principle articulated by the Supreme Court in Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v Union of India and reaffirmed in subsequent sustainable development jurisprudence. Fisheries policy is now a test case for whether that balance can be achieved in practice.
India’s rise to 197.75 lakh tonnes of production is not merely an agricultural statistic. It is a transformation that has restructured coastlines, trade relationships, labour markets and ecological systems. It has embedded the country deeply into the legal regimes of global commerce, environmental governance and human rights accountability.
Whether this boom becomes a foundation of long term strategic resilience or the subject of the next generation of climate litigation, trade disputes and constitutional challenges will depend not on production volumes, but on the integrity of the legal frameworks that govern every net cast and every container shipped.
In the coming decade, fish may prove to be one of India’s most powerful exports, or one of its most contested liabilities. The difference will be written not in tonnes, but in court judgments, trade panels and environmental impact reports.