The government seems to have learnt its lesson from the acute difficulty it faced in assessing the true extent of post-tsunami damage to the country's fishing community. It initiated The National Marine Fisheries Census-2005 on April 15, 2005 to update the database on fisherfolk population and help establish an efficient fisheries management regime. The Rs 80.5 lakh operation will be conducted by Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), Veraval till May 15, 2005.
"After 1980 this will be the first time that a national level exercise of this kind will be undertaken. At present, little data is available... related to fisherfolk," CMFRI director Mohan Joseph Modayil said. The census will cover about 3,000 marine fishing villages in all coastal states and union territories of the country. But tsunami-hit Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry will not be covered in the first phase of the exercise.
Information from households will be collected via a questionnaire on parameters including family size, education, occupation, craft and gear and skills acquisition. Boat and cold storage owners and net makers will also be covered.
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