Commercial exploitation of seaweeds in India and need for their large scale cultivation

The general distribution of seaweeds along the east and west coasts of India, Lakshadweep and Andaman-Nicobsr islands is given. The standing crop of seaweeds in all these areas is estimated as more than 1,00,000 tons (wet wt.). The quantity of seaweeds growing in the shallow water areas (0 to 4.0 m depth) of southwest coast of Tamil Nadu was estimated as 22,000 tons (wet wt.) in an area of 17,125 ha and from deep waters (5.0 to 22.0 m depth) was 75,372 tons (wet wt.) from an area of 1,863 sq.km. Monthly data were collected during the four years 1989,1990,1992 and 1993 from different seaweed ,landing Centres in Tamil Nadu coast on the quantity of seaweeds harvested from the natural seaweed beds.