Examine the environmental and livelihood concerns associated with purse seine fishing and evaluate India's regulatory response at the State and Central levels.

Purse seining — encircling entire shoals of pelagic fish with a large net drawn shut at the bottom — is India's most efficient gear for harvesting pelagic stocks [1], but its efficiency is precisely what makes it contested. The regulatory challenge lies in reconciling conservation, small-fisher livelihoods, and a split Centre-State jurisdiction over the sea.

Environmental concerns

• Stock depletion: bulk capture of shoaling species such as Indian mackerel and oil sardine strains pelagic stocks, which CMFRI assesses using spawning stock biomass and juvenile abundance as precautionary reference points [1].
• Juvenile capture: small mesh sizes take fish below length-at-first-maturity, undermining recruitment [1].
• Ecosystem risk: purse seining is clubbed with LED-light fishing and pair/bull trawling as gear needing curbs to protect marine ecosystems [2].

Livelihood concerns

• Displacement of artisanal fishers: high-capital mechanised vessels outcompete traditional gill-net and country-craft fishers in the same inshore grounds, the reason Tamil Nadu banned purse seining in its territorial waters in 2000 [3].
• Conflict and enforcement burden: gear conflict within 12 nautical miles pushes States into policing roles they are ill-equipped for [3].

State-level response — evaluation Tamil Nadu's Marine Fishing Regulation Rules, 2020 prohibit purse seine and pair trawling in its coastal waters and provide for "specified channels" for vessel transit [3]. The framework is protective but enforcement-weak: without demarcated channels, EEZ-bound transit can mask illegal inshore fishing — hence the Supreme Court's September 2026 direction to Tamil Nadu to notify such channels, framed as cooperative federalism [4].

Central-level response — evaluation The Sustainable Harnessing of Fisheries in the EEZ Rules, 2025 (notified 4 November 2025 under the Maritime Zones Act, 1976) shift effort from crowded inshore waters to the EEZ, prioritise Fishermen Cooperative Societies and FFPOs, bar harmful gear, and mandate minimum legal fish sizes and Fisheries Management Plans with States [2][5]; an EEZ Access Pass now operationalises entry [6].

On balance, India has moved from prohibition to calibrated, zone-differentiated regulation — a sound direction. Its success now depends on VTS-based monitoring, harmonised State channel rules, and PMMSY-backed capacity support so that deep-sea access reaches small fishers rather than large operators alone.