Discuss the impact of climate change and water-quality decline on India's inland fisheries and suggest measures to build resilience among fishing communities.

Inland waters supply about three-fourths of India's fish output [1], which reached a record 197.75 lakh tonnes in 2024–25 [2]. When the development phase of the National Plan of Action (NPOA) for inland small-scale fisheries was launched, the Fisheries Secretary named climate change and falling dissolved oxygen as major threats [1]. This puts the livelihoods of the poorest fishers at risk.

Impact of climate change

• Sustainability risk: A Parliamentary Standing Committee (2024) found the sector at risk of becoming unsustainable from climate change, pollution and habitat loss [3].
• Fragile ecosystems: Floodplain wetlands and cold-water systems, both covered by the NPOA, are the most exposed to erratic floods and droughts [1].
• Livelihood shock: Fisheries employs about 28 million people directly [3]. Most are small fishers with little savings to absorb a lost season.

Impact of water-quality decline

• Low oxygen: Falling dissolved oxygen chokes fish stocks [1].
• Flow and fragmentation: NMCG links reduced flows, excessive water withdrawal and river barriers to the decline of hilsa and golden mahseer [4].
• Barrage effect: After the Farakka Barrage (1975), hilsa could not migrate up the Ganga, and fishers' incomes fell [5].
• Under-used reservoirs: Reservoirs produce about 0.45 million tonnes against a potential of 2 million tonnes, partly because governance is fragmented [6].

Measures for resilience

• Use the NPOA: Put its themes on tenure, decent work, gender, value chains and climate risk into practice, and draw on fishers' own experience [1].
• Secure tenure: The reservoir guidelines give Fisheries Cooperative Societies preference only in small reservoirs [6]. This should be extended to all reservoirs so that open bidding does not push out local fishers.
• River-health convergence: The Department of Fisheries should work with Jal Shakti and NMCG on river flows and fish passage. River ranching has already brought hilsa back near Chandauli [5].
• Monitoring: Use GIS and IoT-based water-quality tracking, as the guidelines recommend [6].
• Diversify income: Invest more in post-harvest processing, as the Standing Committee urged [3], and link PMMSY's productivity gains [2] to community groups.

A dated NPOA work plan with State-level reporting, backed by PMMSY funds and joint action on river health, can turn this ecological threat into climate-resilient livelihoods. That would advance SDG 14 and fulfil the Constitution's promise of equitable access to resources (Article 39(b)).