TECHNO-ECONOMICS OF MECHANIZED FISHING VESSELS OPERATED FROM GANGOLLI LANDING CENTRE OF KARNATAKA, INDIA.

Fisheries sector provides livelihood to about 25 million fishers and fish farmers at the primary level and almost twice the number along the value chain. The purse-seiner and trawlers are major means of large-scale harvest of marine fishery resources along Karnataka coast. Gangolli landings centre is one of the key marine fish landing centre of Udupi district of Karnataka. The present study evaluated the economic performance of both single day trawler and purse-seiner operated from the landing centre. The key economic indices like Benefit-cost (BC) ratio, operating ratio (OR), net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and cost efficiency were estimated to evaluate the economic performance. The BC ratios for purse-seiner were estimated at 1.20, whereas it was 1.12 for the single day trawlers. The respective operating ratio were 0.56 and 0.67. The estimated IRR for the purse-seiner was 37.18%, a slightly higher IRR was observed for single day trawler (39.01%). The cost efficiencies for purse-seiner were 0.847 and 0.939 at constant and variable return to scale, respectively. Similar cost efficiencies were also observed for the single day trawlers. It was observed that the mechanized fishing sector is operating under narrow profit margin. The declining revenue due to decrease in quantum of high valued fishes in catches and escalating fuel prices have been identified as the major factor leading to deteriorating economics of the mechanized sector in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]