According to Department of Animal Husbandry Dairying and Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, seafood exports reached an all time high of Rs 166 billion (around $3.5 billion), an increase of about 29% in rupee terms and around 23% in dollar terms.
Since its mass introduction, production of vannamei has risen from 1,730 tons in 2009-10 to about 80,717 tons in 2011-12, an annual growth of around 584%, thereby increasing its share in the total cultured shrimp production from 1.6% to around 35.9% in two years.
Shrimp accounted for around 50% of the value of seafood exports, an all time high of $1.740 billion foreign exchange earnings. That increase was achieved mainly by surge in production from aquaculture including that contributed by the native black tiger (monodon) shrimp species.
But production of vannamei shrimp is one of the major reasons for setting the new high benchmark in seafood exports. Vannamei were introduced in 2009 in India when there was a downturn in shrimp industry due to exclusive monodon culture that suffered from a disease outbreak.
The Ministrys Rajiv Gandhi Center for Aquaculture (RGCA) created an additional wing, Phase II, funded by National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), to quarantine more vannamei brooders and assure sustainability of the industry. The third and the final phase of the facility is also underway which will boost the total quarantine capacity of the facility to 20 cubicles (quarantine around 237,600 brooders per annum).
The introduction of vannamei to India through this approved quarantine premise had benefited in augmenting the marine shrimp production through acquaculture of the country from a level of around 88,000 tons worth Rs 191.5 billion in 2008-09 to about 145,600 tons worth Rs 358.5 billion crore in 2010-11 and to about 224,500 tons valued at Rs 660 billion in 2011-12.
