Profitability is the major issue in fishing, particularly in the small-scale sector. Fuel accounts for about 70% of the operational cost of fishing vessels. Design of the vessel and about 50% of the fuel being used in the shipping industry in the country is consumed by the fishing industry.
The hydrodynamics of the fishing vessel is the critical factor determining fishing efficiency. The Institute has developed different designs and 35,000 fishing vessels operating in the Indian waters follow CIFT design. Sagarkripa, a medium class fishing vessel is an improvement over the vessels developed so far, by the Institute. With the help of the Computer-aided Design (CAD) facility at the Institute, Shri M.Nassar, Senior Scientist and his team developed a design with a narrower hull and an asymmetric nozzle propeller system which evolved into Sagarkripa setting a milestone in fisheries R&D. The vessel which was developed under the ICAR ad-hoc project was launched in September, 1999. The commercial trials by the fishing boat operators have realised the expected outcome , that is, about 17 % savings in the fuel cost.