Overview
- Union minister Jitendra Singh inaugurated the North Bay pilot on January 18, marking India’s first open-sea aquaculture deployment.
- Seabass and cobia are being reared in offshore cages alongside trial seaweed cultivation using NIOT-developed systems.
- The pilot is a collaboration of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, NIOT, and the Andaman & Nicobar administration with operations now underway.
- Seaweed and finfish seeds were handed to local fishing groups to kick-start deep-water cultivation and cage-based farming.
- The government signalled next steps through completed technology transfer, a proposed interagency cluster with DBT and CSIR, and potential public–private scaling.