Prawn fisheries - Maharashtra

Maharashtra, with 720 km of coastline and \n0.89 sq km of continental shelf is blessed with rich \ncrustacean resources comprising of prawns, \nlobsters, crabs and stomatopods. In the past decade \n(2001-2010) the crustaceans contributed to nearly \none third of the annual total marine fish landings \nof 3.57 lakh t and prawns alone constituted the \nsingle largest marine fish resource of the state, \ngenerating revenue of nearly Rs 500 crores annually. \nThe marine prawn fishery of Maharashtra is very \ndistinctive with the bulk of the fishery supported \nby tiny non-penaeid prawns generally consumed \nby the poor, and the rest of the penaeid prawns \nwhich are larger in size and mostly consumed by \nthe urban population and exported. The nonpenaeid \nprawns are so characteristic of the state \nthat in early eighties 90% of the landings in India \ncame from Maharashtra (Ramamurthy, 1985).