PANAJI
Goa’s hunger for fish is well-known throughout the world.
In fact, Goa ranks second in the list of States that consumes large quantity of fish according to a recent report published by the Union Ministry for Fisheries. On an average, a Goan consumes around 78 kg of fish per year, the report states.
Goa is only second to Lakshadweep, which bags the first place in the list of States consuming highest amount of fish with every person there consuming around 125 kg a year.
In further break-up of Goa’s figures of 78 kg of fish per person per year, the central report cites that on a monthly average a Goan consumes around 6.5 kg of fish.
The figures have been arrived at taking into consideration that Goa’s population is 15 lakh and of this 15 lakh, around 13 lakh Goans are fish eaters.
However, it is not that Goans consume fish every day. There are specific days in a week (Monday, Thursday etc), and festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi where Goans do not consume fish.
After Goa, the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands features in the list where fish consumption is large with every person consuming a little over 77 kg of fish per year.
According to the report, nationwide, every Indian consumes around 6.31 kg of fish every year.
Tripura is fourth after the twin islands, with an average person consuming around 25.53 kg fish every year.
The other States in the list are Chhattisgarh (19.7 kg), Puducherry (18.88 kg), Manipur (18.25 kg), Kerala (17.93 kg), Odisha (16.34 kg), Assam (11.98 kg), Uttar Pradesh (11.09 kg), Jharkhand (10.61 kg), Karnataka (10.55 kg), Tamil Nadu (9.3 kg), Meghalaya (9 kg), Andhra Pradesh (8.91 kg), Jammu and Kashmir (6 kg), Madhya Pradesh (4.87 kg), Maharashtra ( 4.72 kg), Arunachal Pradesh (3.65 kg) and Mizoram (3.38 kg) fish consumption per year.
Fish consumption is the least in Rajasthan where a person consumes just 0.01 kg of fish in a year.
And after Rajasthan, Ladakh (0.05 kg), Haryana (0.03 kg) and Punjab (0.4 kg) are the States where fish consumption is the least.
