Marine Fisheries Census 2025
What is it?
The Marine Fisheries Census 2025 is a nationwide, fully digital survey aimed at collecting detailed information about India’s marine fishing population, their livelihood conditions, and coastal infrastructure. The data will support smarter decision-making and targeted government interventions.
Organised by:
The census is financed entirely by the Department of Fisheries, Government of India, and carried out by the ICAR–Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), with field logistics supported by the Fishery Survey of India (FSI).
Purpose:
To build a real-time, data-driven profile of marine fisher families, their assets, income levels, and infrastructure needs, enabling better fisheries governance, welfare distribution, and sustainability planning.
Key Highlights
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100% Digital Survey: First census to ditch paper forms, using geo-tagged digital entries instead.
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Nationwide Coverage: Aims to enumerate 1.2 million households in around 5,000 coastal fishing villages across 13 coastal States/UTs.
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Socio-Economic Mapping: Tracks livelihood patterns, loans, insurance, and access to schemes like PMMSY and PM–MKSSY.
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Drone Support: Drones will be deployed to count fishing vessels and validate field data for better accuracy.
About the VYAS App Suite
What is it?
The VYAS (Vessel and Yield Assessment System) is a set of customised digital applications designed to manage every stage of the Marine Fisheries Census 2025 — from village verification to household data entry to live monitoring.
Developed by:
ICAR–CMFRI as part of its move to modernise fisheries data collection in India.
Objective:
To ensure fast, precise, tamper-proof, and centrally accessible field data, with seamless coordination between enumerators, supervisors, and policymakers.
Core Features
✅ Three Specialised Apps
| App | Purpose |
|---|---|
| VYAS–NAV | Validates fishing villages, landing centres, harbours |
| VYAS–BHARAT | Household-level & infrastructure enumeration |
| VYAS–SUTRA | Supervisory dashboard for live progress tracking |
✅ GPS-enabled data for exact spatial mapping
✅ Supports multiple Indian languages
✅ Live dashboards for central monitoring & analytics
✅ Cloud-based storage ensuring transparency and data security