Deep Sea Fishing Station (DSFS) – Oct'1946
The Deep Sea Fishing Station (DSFS) in Bombay was established in October, 1946 as a pilot project by the Government of India with the objective of augmenting food supply through development of deep-sea fishing.
The institute has started its journey with one vessel namely S. T. Meena, a mine sweeper converted into a trawler. The main objectives of the DSFS were:
Charting of fishing grounds, and Training of deep sea fishing personnel.
Realizing the gigantic task of DSFS, the Government of India had established a number of such stations on both the east and west coast of India. Accordingly, the Offshore Fishing Stations (OFS) were established at Cochin in 1957 and two more stations at Tuticorin and Visakhapatnam in 1958.
The Offshore Fishing Stations operated wooden fishing vessels and few steel trawlers. The OFSs were initially under the direct Administrative control of the then Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Govt. of India and they were brought under the control of DSFS in 1959. These stations operated 20 fishing vessels, of which, 15 were wooden vessels. Due to the aging of these vessels, they became obsolete for survey. Therefore, efforts were made to acquire new vessels from abroad and indigenously built.
In 1968, an ambitious program of exploratory survey in offshore waters of the entire Indian coast was undertaken and a fleet of 20 numbers of indigenously built steel stern trawlers (Meena series) of 17.5m OAL were inducted.
In 1969, Matsya Vigyani, 32m stern trawler was acquired from German Democratic Republic under bilateral aid program of international co-operation.
After the induction of Meena series vessels of 8, Offshore Fishing Stations were established in phase manner viz., Calcutta (1971), Port Blair (1971), Kandla (1971), Goa (1972), Mangalore (1972), Madras (1972) and Paradeep (1972). These OFSs were established in addition to the DSFS in Bombay and OFSs in Cochin, Tuticorin and Visakhapatnam.
In 1973, DSFS at Bombay was made an independent Offshore Fishing Stations (OFS).
