ICAR – Central Institute of Fisheries Education

 ICAR – Central Institute of Fisheries Education

ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai is a Centre of Excellence in Fisheries Higher Education in the country. It also has the reputation of being the only university in the world that produces master's and doctoral students in 11 highly specialized disciplines of fisheries. It has also developed many technologies to promote the fisheries sector in the country.

ICAR-CIFE celebrated its XIX Convocation to confer degrees on 21st Feb 2026. In this Convocation, Director and Vice Chancellor of ICAR-CIFE, Dr. N. P. Sahu, conferred degrees on 94 Master's and 49 Ph.D. students. 

The Chief Guest of the function, Dr. Mangi Lal Jat, Secretary, DARE and Director General, ICAR awarded gold medals to meritorious students on this occasion and delivered the Convocation Address. Dr. Joykrushna Jena Deputy Director General (Fisheries Science and additional charge of Education Division), ICAR also graced the occasion as the Guest of Honour. 

The Chief Guest lauded the role of professional fisheries education in supporting a thriving and rapidly growing sector that employs up to 30 million people across India. Globally, capture fisheries and aquaculture are contributing equally to fish production, indicating a paradigm shift, wherein more emphasis rests on advanced aquaculture production systems that conserve and recycle water and energy, utilise genetically improved strains, efficient feed and health management strategies. This fact presents golden opportunities to fisheries professionals, as they are best equipped to become entrepreneurs, and must seize this moment of a booming start-up culture brought in by this government. In fact, CIFE, other ICAR Fisheries Institutes and Agricultural Universities have developed advanced technologies that can lead to enterprises. He appreciated CIFE’s efforts to promote student entrepreneurship that will contribute to the transformation of India from a service economy to a knowledge-based economy and fulfil the dream of becoming ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047.

In 2025, fish production reached a record high of 197.75 lakh tons. India is the second largest producer of fish in the world contributing to 8% of global fish production. Fisheries and aquaculture contribute to nearly 1.24% of India’s GDP. The Indian fisheries export in 2023-2024 reached 16.98 lakh tonnes valued at Rs. 62,408 crores. Fisheries sector has shown a significant growth of over 11% per year since 2014-15. In continuation of Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) implemented from 2020 to 2025, Govt. of India has launched the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana (PM-MKSSY). The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) facility has also been extended to fishers and fish farmers. Now, Bharat-VISTAAR, a multilingual AI tool to integrate the AgriStack portals and the ICAR package with AI system is proposed. The role of fisheries education and professionals is vital in this transformative journey of making India a leading producer and consumer of quality fish in the world.

He congratulated the students who excelled and won medals, and urged CIFE to continue to augment its stature in the field of higher education.