www.IndianJournals.com Members Copy, Not for Commercial Sale Downloaded From IP - 14.139.191.129 on dated 25-Oct-2016 Economic Affairs DOI : The main aim of any business is to gain profit. Fishing is considered as one of the profit-oriented business. Fisheries sector has been playing an important role in the national economy through improved food supply, employment, income and foreign exchange earnings. During 2011, the valuation of Indian total marine fish landings at the landing centre level was estimated at ` 24,372 cores, in which Maharashtra contributed 2,875 cores, of which 8.4% came from gillnets. So the average fishermen share in the consumer’s rupee was found to be 63.88% (Anon, 2012a). Increase in the fishing fleet has increased the competition for the survival as there is day by day increase in fishing fleet, which leads to indiscriminate fishing in near coastal waters. Gillnetting has become popular among fishers being less capital intensive, selectively operated depending on availability and demand and can be operated at areas where bottom is not suitable for trawling. Among the gear wise contribution to all India marine landings, the gillnets contributed 21% with 6% mechanised and 15% motorised sector during 2007 (Ramani et al., 2010). Economic Performance of Three Different Gillnet Fishing Units Operating along Mumbai Coast Shabir A. Dar 1 , Saly N. Thomas 2 and Nasir Husain 3 1&3 Faculty of Fisheries, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-06, Srinagar, India 2 Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, Willington Island, Matsyapuri, Cochin-29, India Corresponding author: shabirdar777@rediffmail.com Abstract Economic analysis was carried out separately for Inboard Motors (IBM), Outboard Motors (OBM) and non- motorised gillnetters operated along Mumbai coast. The economic performance of fishing operation is affected by various factors including fluctuations in revenue, diminishing catch per unit effort, sudden increase in the cost of key inputs, catch and effort restrictions. Capital and labour will continue to enter the fishery until the economic rents are totally dissipated and profits to individual units are reduced to the levels of their opportunity costs. The economic performance also plays a crucial role in the investment decisions at micro level and is deciding factor for sustainable returns of any business. The paper analyses the economic viability of gillnet fishing operations of all the three sectors viz. Outboard Motors (OBM), Inboard Motors (IBM) and non-motorised operated along Mumbai coast were running in profit. Keywords: Economic efficiency, Gillnet, Mumbai coast State wise gillnet contribution to the total marine fish landings during 2012 was maximum of Tamil Nadu (16.2%), followed by Andhra Pradesh (14%), Gujarat (13%), Maharashtra (7.3%), Kerala (6.2%) and Karnataka (3.4%) (Anon., 2013). So, it necessitates a cost-benefit analysis to assess the potential net economic benefit from marine fisheries of the country in order to frame necessary policy measures for judicious exploitation and conservation. Maharashtra with 720 km of coastline along five maritime districts is an important maritime state with respect to marine fish production. The marine fish landings in Maharashtra during 2011 have been estimated provisionally at 4.13 lakh t of which gillnets contribute 11.2% of the total catch and 12,154 mechanised and 2,292 non-mechanised fishing units are in operation in the state (Anon, 2012b). Mumbai district alone contributed 1.43 lakh t viz., 32% of the total marine fish production of Maharashtra (Anon, 2011). It indicates that Mumbai coast is one of the most important fishing grounds of the state. On the above background, the present study has been undertaken to examine the economic efficiency of the gillnetters. Paper No.: 247 Received: 24 April 2014 Accepted: 17 August 2015 10.5958/0976-4666.2015.00064.9