The DK department of fisheries has decided to provide registration numbers to fishing boats but their concern grew at the same time. The reason is that number of fishing boats do not grow exponentially compared to vehicles that hit the roads and the 12-digit numbering system adopted by them will serve the purpose for quite some time to come. Suresh Kumar Ullal, deputy director of department of fisheries, citing the example of Mangalore fisheries harbour said there are around 2,350-odd fishing boats of all descriptions at the old port here.
He told that they can register 9,999 fishing boats under each category. Unlike motor vehicles, the addition of fishing boats takes its own time and this boat registration system can last for a very long time. The national code `91′ will be a constant for all fishing boats registered in India, and the first two letters of each state will be the state code. Karnataka will have port codes starting from 01 and ending at 09 with codes 01, 02 and 03 representing Mangalore, Malpe and Gangoli ports, and codes 04 up to 09 the five fisheries ports in Uttara Kannada district.
