New Delhi to quantify ocean wealth, climate risks in new accounting push

Why in the News

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has issued a concept paper proposing to put a monetary value on India’s marine fish stocks and record them as a national asset. The paper, titled Methodological Approach for Compilation of Experimental Monetary Asset Accounts of Marine Fish Resources, applies the United Nations System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) to fish within India’s exclusive economic zone. The shift it proposes is from counting what is caught in a year to valuing the stock that produces the catch. The tension is that the asset being valued is living, mobile and thinly surveyed, so the first estimate rests on proxies rather than on direct stock assessment.

What is the System of Environmental Economic Accounting?

1. About: SEEA is a United Nations statistical framework that records a country’s natural resources inside the same accounting structure used for its economy.
2. The core idea: A natural resource is treated as a capital asset, and what is taken from it in a year is treated as a flow of economic benefit from that asset.
3. Coverage in India: India has compiled environmental accounts since 2018 through the EnviStats India programme, covering assets such as land, water, forests, minerals and pollination.

What do India’s current fisheries figures capture?

1. Global standing: India is the world’s second largest fish producing country and accounts for 8 percent of global production.
2. The inland and marine split: Total fish production in FY25 was 19.77 million metric tonnes, 77 percent of it from inland sources and 23 percent from the marine sector.
3. Marine output has expanded: Marine fish production reached 46.15 lakh tonnes in 2024-25, against 34.43 lakh tonnes in 2013-14.
4. Contribution to the economy: The sector contributed an estimated Rs 1.76 lakh crore in 2023-24, or 1.09 percent of national gross value added.
5. Export volume and value: Marine product exports in FY25 were 1.7 million metric tonnes valued at Rs 62,408.45 crore, growing 3.11 percent a year in volume.
6. Reach of the export basket: More than 350 varieties, including frozen fish, squid, cuttlefish and dried items, reach 130 international markets.

Why do those figures not answer the sustainability question?

1. Output says nothing about the stock: Aggregate production records how much was landed, not whether commercially important stocks can sustain similar production in future.
2. Species and regions vanish into the total: A national tonnage figure hides the changing value of individual species and the condition of regional fish stocks.
3. Fishing pressure leaves no trace: The long term effect of fishing pressure and environmental change does not register in an annual catch series.
4. No blue economy series exists: India has no regular, comprehensive blue economy GDP series comparable with the series available for agriculture or manufacturing.
5. Known potential carries a known risk: NITI Aayog puts the exclusive economic zone’s resource potential at about 7.16 million metric tonnes and warns that some deep sea resources are vulnerable to overexploitation.

How far has this been attempted elsewhere?

1. Only a handful of countries: The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) notes that only a handful of countries currently compile monetary asset accounts for aquatic resources.
2. The group India would join: Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, the United States and New Zealand are attempting to bring blue natural capital into national accounts.
3. The contrast with land based assets: Valuation methods for forests and minerals are mature, and the aquatic equivalent remains at an experimental and pilot stage.
4. The international guidance is dated: The SEEA-Fisheries conceptual guidance is outdated, so India is building on an incomplete standard rather than a settled one.

How would a marine fish asset account be built?

1. Define the accounting units: The first step selects the commercially, economically or ecologically important marine species the account will cover.
2. Classify each stock: Species wise landing data for the preceding ten years serves as the initial proxy, and current landings are compared with historical peaks to mark a stock as regenerating, stable or depleting.
3. Estimate the asset life: Each resource is assigned an asset life, which is the bridge between the fisheries science on the stock and its economic treatment.
4. Calculate the resource rent: Resource rent is the income attributable to the natural resource after deducting labour, operating expenses, depreciation and a normal return on fishing vessels and other capital.
5. Discount the future rents: Expected future resource rents are projected over the estimated asset life and discounted at a proposed 2 percent real rate to give a present value.
6. The output: The result is a marine fish asset account, a statistical record carrying both the physical condition of a stock and its estimated economic value.

What is riding on the outcome?

1. Livelihoods: Fishing supports nearly 30 million livelihoods and is a cornerstone of the blue economy.
2. Geography: India’s coastline runs about 11,100 km and carries rich marine biodiversity.
3. The stated target: Available numbers put the blue economy at about 4 percent of GDP against a target of a $100 billion blue economy by 2030.
4. Budget support: The latest Union Budget earmarked a record Rs 2,761.8 crore in total annual support, with the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) carrying Rs 2,500 crore in 2026-27.
5. Competing claims on sea space: Fisheries compete with ports, tourism, offshore energy and coastal development for marine space. Integrated accounts give those trade offs one economic and environmental database.
6. Investment decisions: A valuation would indicate whether to put money into additional fishing capacity, stock restoration or deep sea fisheries. It would also allow the economic cost of climate induced changes in marine resources to be estimated.

Challenges to valuing marine fish stocks

1. The asset is living and mobile: A fish stock changes in size and location continuously, which makes it harder to value at a point in time than a forest or a mineral deposit. Eg. Oil sardine landings along the Kerala coast collapsed through the 2010s and then partially recovered, moving the stock’s value within a single decade.
   The Fix: Anchor the account to periodic scientific biomass surveys by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute rather than to landing data alone.
2. Landings measure effort as much as abundance: What boats bring ashore reflects fleet capacity, fuel prices and market demand alongside the size of the stock. Eg. Landings can rise as vessels mechanise and trips lengthen even as the underlying stock thins.
   The Fix: Report effort adjusted catch per unit effort alongside raw landings, so a rise in output is separated from a rise in fishing pressure.
3. The discount rate decides the answer: A present value calculation is highly sensitive to the rate chosen, so the 2 percent assumption fixes how much weight future stocks carry. Eg. A higher rate values a stock mainly by what it yields in the next few years and makes long term depletion look cheap.
   The Fix: Publish the account across a range of discount rates so the valuation’s dependence on that single assumption is visible to the user.
4. An account does not restrain a catch: Recording depletion changes no rule about who may fish, since marine fishing within territorial waters is regulated by coastal States under their own legislation. Eg. Monsoon fishing bans and mesh size rules are notified State by State along the coastline.
   The Fix: Require stock classifications from the account to feed directly into the fisheries management plans and catch limits of coastal States.

Conclusion

Valuing a fish stock changes what the national accounts can show, not what the fishing fleet is allowed to take. The account will report depletion only as accurately as the biological data underneath it, and that data is the weakest part of the exercise. The test is whether the numbers reach harvesting rules and coastal livelihood decisions rather than stopping at a statistical publication.

Back2Basics: Exclusive Economic Zone

1. Legal basis: The exclusive economic zone is established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982.
2. Extent: It reaches up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the territorial sea is measured.
3. Rights it confers: The coastal State holds sovereign rights to explore, exploit, conserve and manage the living and non living resources of the zone.
4. India’s zone: India’s exclusive economic zone covers over 2 million square km, which is larger than its land area.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026] At the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) held in June, 2025 in France, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations demonstrated its leading voice on marine and ocean issues, especially on sustainable fisheries and aquaculture for resilient livelihood and ‘Blue Transformation’. Which of the following combinations about the ‘Four Betters’ proposed by FAO for ‘Blue Transformation’ is correct? (a) Better production, better nutrition, better environment and better ocean (b) Better production, better nutrition, better environment and better life (c) Better coral reefs, better nutrition, better environment and better life (d) Better estuaries, better nutrition, better environment and better mangrove vegetation ANSWER: (b)”