India Launches Digital Marine Fisheries Census 2025
- 01 Nov 2025
On 31st October 2025, Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, launched the Marine Fisheries Census (MFC) 2025 Household Enumeration and the VYAS–BHARAT and VYAS–SUTRA mobile applications at Kochi, marking a complete digital transformation of India’s national fisheries census.
Key Points
- Digital Census Initiative: MFC 2025 replaces traditional paper-based surveys with a fully digital, geo-referenced data collection system, covering 1.2 million fisher households across 5,000 marine fishing villages in 13 coastal States and Union Territories, including the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.
- Census Duration: The enumeration will be conducted from November 3 to December 18, 2025, over a span of 45 days.
- Technological Backbone: The census will use multilingual Android apps developed by ICAR–Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI)—
- VYAS–NAV: For validating fishing villages and harbours.
- VYAS–BHARAT: For household and infrastructure enumeration.
- VYAS–SUTRA: For real-time supervision and monitoring.
- Enhanced Accuracy & Transparency: The digital and geo-referenced approach enables real-time supervision through multi-tier web dashboards, improving data accuracy, efficiency, and accountability.
- Socio-Economic Data Collection: For the first time, MFC 2025 will capture expanded socio-economic details, including family income, home ownership, liabilities, credit sources, and insurance status. It will also record the impact of COVID-19 and the reach of welfare schemes such as PMMSY and PM-MKSSY.
- Drone Integration: The Department of Fisheries and CMFRI have introduced drone-based aerial enumeration of fishing crafts at major harbours (Vizag, Kakinada, Tuticorin, Mangaluru, Beypore, and Puthiyappa) to ensure neutral and verifiable records.
