People from Lakshadweep eat 300 gm of fish every day but their counterparts in Haryana need a year to consume as much, according to latest data on fish consumption in India. The national average seemed to average around 6.46 kg a year.

Lakshadweep comes first

People in Lakshadweep ate 105.6 kg fish per person in 2019-20, nearly twice more than the inhabitants of Andaman and Nicobar Islands who came second with an annual per capita fish consumption of 59 kg.

If anyone thinks that people in Haryana are poor fish eaters because they live far away from the sea, their counterparts in Tripura are an aberration – their per capita fish consumption in 2019-20 was 25.45 kg, which helped them earn the third spot on the rung.

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The details came out recently in a reply to a question raised in the Lok Sabha recently.

Haryana, however, is not alone in their lack of appetite for fish. Fish is the last thing on their mind for many of its neighbours too – an average Delhiite eats 0.47 kg fish a year, while his counterpart in Uttarakhand and Rajasthan consumes 0.7 kg and 0.86 kg respectively.

Punjabis’ love for Amritsari fish tikka is very evident as the Northwestern State ranks pretty high on the list with 16.47 kg per capita fish consumption. Similarly, most Northeastern people, barring those in Sikkim, are good fish eaters.

Chhattisgarh pips Kerala

While the data is not available for two most popular fish-loving societies – Goa and West Bengal, Chhattisgarh pipped Kerala to post to be fourth on the list with 19.7 kg fish per person per year. Keralites eat 19.59 kg fish a year.

Among the other States and Union Territories with an average annual per capita fish consumption in double digits are Puducherry (18.8 kg), Odisha (16.24 kg), Assam (11.89 kg), Karnataka (11.66 kg), Uttar Pradesh (10.87 kg) and Manipur (10.5 kg).

During 2019-20, the amount of fish caught in the country was 141.64 lakh tonne. Andhra Pradesh with 41.74 lakh tonne, accounted for nearly 30 per cent of fish production in the country, followed by West Bengal (17.82 lakh tonne) and Gujarat (8.59 lakh tonne).

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