KOCHI: The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), one of the major fisheries research organisations in the world, is all set to celebrate its platinum jubilee to mark the eventful 70 years of research activities by the institute in the area of marine fisheries.
Kerala Governor Justice P Sathasivam will kick off the one year-long celebrations at 2.30 pm on February 18 at the Headquarters in Kochi. Dr. J. K. Jena, Deputy Director General (Fisheries) of ICAR, New Delhi will preside over the function.
Established as a marine fisheries research station on February 3 in 1947 in Madras, the institute joined Indian Council Agricultural Research, (ICAR) family in 1967 and started functioning as a premier research establishment to undertake marine fisheries research in the country.
Apart from estimation of marine fish landings, its valuation and taxonomic studies, the research activities of CMFRI are diversified to a variety of niche areas such as sea farming and coastal mariculture, development of hatchery technologies for commercially viable marine fish species, cage farming, biotechnological applications of marine resources, biodiversity studies, development of sustainable ecosystem management interventions, policy studies and so on.
Apart from the Headquarters, the ICAR-CMFRI, country’s national R&D body in marine fisheries, has 11 Regional Research Centres located respectively at Mandapam Camp, Visakhapatnam, Veraval, Mumbai, Chennai, Calicut, Karwar, Tuticorin, Vizhinjam, Mangalore and Digha, in addition to fifteen field centres throughout the coastal belts of the country and 1 KVK at Narakkal, Ernakulum.
There are 154 scientists and over 600 other staff working at the CMFRI in as many as 10 research divisions.
According to Dr A Gopalakrishnan, Director of CMFRI, over the past seven decades the institute has grown significantly in size and stature emerging as a leading tropical marine fisheries research institute in the world displaying an unparalleled research acumen and unbridled commitment which helped in boosting the marine fish production and management of the fisheries sector and for the livelihood of 40 lakh fisher folk of the country.