BHUBANESWAR — Citing an urgent need to know exactly which small-scale boat is currently not catching enough fish, state officials announced a comprehensive overhaul of the 1982 marine fishing law to mandate Aadhaar linking and live vessel tracking.

The new draft amendment aims to close critical surveillance gaps left by the government's 2017 coastal security initiative, which successfully identified 3.46 lakh fishermen and photographed 3.45 lakh of them for mandatory biometric cards. That drive was itself designed to supplement a 2012 program that distributed identity cards to 1.53 lakh coastal workers.

"The 2017 biometric cards merely proved these fishermen exist," said a department spokesperson, reviewing the November 2024 draft amendment. "The new tracking mandates will tell us exactly where they are when they realize they cannot afford the mandatory technology upgrades required to legally operate their own boats."

The spokesperson confirmed the new surveillance systems are expected to be fully implemented by 2026, at which point the department will begin drafting a fourth identification scheme to address the shortcomings of the third.