Exploratory Fisheries Project (EFP) - 1974
Re-orientation of the activities of OFSs took place and the institute was renamed as Exploratory Fisheries Project (EFP) in 1974 and the OFS were named as the Bases of EFP.
In 1976-77, Veraval Base was established and thus, the institute had 12 operational Bases with a fleet of 23 survey vessels.
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) was declared in 1976 and India has got an area of 2.02 million square kilometer of sea as its sovereign right for exploitation of marine fisheries resources. Realizing this massive need of the nation towards food security, Govt. of India had started to acquire large survey vessels for the survey of demersal, pelagic and oceanic resources of the EEZ.
As a first leap to achieve this goal, Govt. of India had chartered a 69m OAL survey vessel M. T. Murena in 1977 from Poland for a period of one year to carry out the exploratory survey of demersal and pelagic resources of North-West coast of India.
This was followed by acquisition of 9 vessels constructed abroad and in India under various bilateral aid programmes. This fleet included:
- Two combination trawlers (Matsya Nireekshani and Matsya Shikari) from Netherlands in 1979,
- Two combination trawlers-cum-purse seiners (Matsya Varshini and Matsya Darshini) from Denmark in 1980,
- A tuna long-liner-cum-squid jigger (Matsya Sugundhi) from Japan in 1980, and
- Four indigenously built vessels under Norwegian aid at Goa Shipyard Limited which included a purse-seiner-cum-tuna long liner (Matsya Harini) in 1980, a combination trawler-cum-tuna-long liner (Matsya Jeevan) in 1982 and two combination trawler-cum-tuna-long liners (Matsya Shakti and Matsya Vishwa) in 1983.
In 1982, a confiscated Taiwanese vessel (Matsya Mohini) was added to the fleet by converting it to Stern trawler.
