The Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act 2005

Section 3, the Central Government's power to take measures to protect the environment, which sets the Act inside the environmental scheme.

Section 4, the Authority. The Central Government establishes the Coastal Aquaculture Authority, with a Chairperson who is or has been a Judge of a High Court, and members drawn from the Ministries, from the coastal States, and from among experts in coastal aquaculture, environmental protection and coastal ecology.

Sections 5 to 8 provide for disqualifications, the eligibility of a member for reappointment, meetings, the committees the 2023 amendment allowed by section 7A, and the saving of proceedings notwithstanding a vacancy.

Section 9 provides for officers, consultants and employees, and section 9A, inserted in 2023, for a Secretary of the Authority. Section 10 provides for the authentication of orders.

Section 11, the functions of the Authority. To make regulations for the construction and operation of coastal aquaculture units within the coastal areas; to inspect them with a view to ascertaining their environmental impact; to register them; to order the removal or demolition of any unit causing pollution, after hearing its occupier; since 2023, to regulate or prohibit the number, species and method of coastal aquaculture through aqua zonation and aqua mapping, to fix standards for aquaculture inputs, for units, with biosecurity, and for the discharge of effluents, and to collect and disseminate information; and to perform such other functions as may be prescribed.

Section 12, power to enter. An officer authorised by the Authority may enter and inspect any coastal aquaculture unit and remove or demolish any structure in it, on twenty-four hours' notice to the occupier; provisos added in 2023 let the Authority waive the notice for reasons recorded in writing and make the owner liable for the cost of demolition and of any damage to the environment.

Section 12A, prohibition of certain materials, inserted in 2023. It empowers the Authority, by an order, to prohibit the use in coastal aquaculture of such pharmacologically active substances, antimicrobial agents or other material harmful to human health as may be prescribed, and of aquaculture inputs containing them. It is a power to prohibit, not a self-executing ban, and it is a food safety measure as much as an environmental one.

Broken down

The Act regulates a place, not an industry. Its reach is the coastal area, which is defined by reference to the coastal regulation zone. Fresh water aquaculture inland is outside it.

Registration is the whole scheme. A farm without registration cannot lawfully operate, and registration carries the conditions.

Section 11 gives the Authority both the rule and the remedy. It makes the regulations, it inspects, it registers, and it orders removal or demolition. That concentration is efficient and is the standing objection: the body that writes the rule enforces it and adjudicates on it.

And section 12A shows what the subject has become. It is about material harmful to human health in what is farmed, not about salinity, and the same 2023 amendment eased the coastal restrictions on the industry with retrospective effect, as the next chapter shows. Aquaculture regulation in India began as an environmental question and has become a food safety and regularisation question, and an answer that notices that is a better answer.

Worked example

A company proposes forty hectares of shrimp ponds nine hundred metres from the high tide line, drawing sea water and discharging to a creek.

Step one, is it coastal aquaculture? Culture of shrimp in ponds in a coastal area in saline water. Yes.

Step two, what is required? Registration under section 13, on the conditions the regulations prescribe, and, for a farm of more than two hectares of water spread, only if the Authority is satisfied that registration will not be detrimental to the coastal environment. Section 13(8), as substituted in 2023 with effect from 16 December 2005, keeps the farm out of ecologically sensitive areas and geo-morphological features, out of the No Development Zone and the buffer zone of a creek, river or backwater, and out of the creeks, rivers and backwaters within the Coastal Regulation Zone. Once registered, it is a permitted activity under the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, by section 28.

Step three, what will the conditions cover? Distance from the high tide line, an effluent treatment system, a buffer, prohibition of drawing fresh ground water, and monitoring.

Step four, what if the wells behind the farm turn saline? The Authority may order removal or demolition of a farm causing pollution under section 11, after a hearing; the polluter pays principle applies to the cost of restoration on the authority of Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action v. Union of India, AIR 1996 SC 1446; and the villagers' right to sweet water under article 21 is engaged on the authority of Attakoya Thangal v. Union of India.

Step five, and antibiotics? Since 2023 section 12A lets the Authority prohibit by order the use of prescribed pharmacologically active substances and antimicrobial agents, and using a prohibited material draws a penalty under section 14 of fifty thousand rupees for a first contravention, rising to one lakh.

Distinctions

What it does NOT mean

It does not mean shrimp farming is prohibited. The Act permits it under registration and regulation. The prohibition is on carrying it on without registration and in the places section 13(8) excludes; the prohibited-activities paragraph of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification does not apply to coastal aquaculture, by the proviso that section 27, as substituted in 2023, deems inserted from 19 February 1991.

It does not mean the Authority replaces the coastal regulation zone regime. The coastal area and the zones in section 13(8) still take their meaning from the notification made under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; what the 2023 amendment changed, by section 28, is that a registration under this Act is a valid permission under that Act's notifications and registered coastal aquaculture is a permitted activity under the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification.

And it does not mean the 1996 judgment has been overruled. It was answered by legislation, and in 2023 section 28 went further: notwithstanding any judgment, no court may enforce a decree or order relating to the removal or closure of coastal aquaculture or the demolition of its structures, as if the validated provisions had always been in force. The principles it applied, precaution and polluter pays, remain law, and were restated in Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India, AIR 1996 SC 2715.

Quick revision

Section 4: the Coastal Aquaculture Authority, chaired by a sitting or former Judge of a High Court.

Section 2: "coastal aquaculture" is the rearing and cultivation of any life stage of fish, including crustacean, mollusc, finfish, seaweed or other aquatic life, under controlled conditions in saline or brackish water in a coastal area, and excludes fresh water aquaculture.

Section 11, functions: make regulations for construction and operation; inspect; register; order removal or demolition of a polluting unit after a hearing; and, since 2023, aqua zonation and aqua mapping, and standards for inputs, for units with biosecurity, and for effluent discharge.

Section 12: power to enter, the owner being liable since 2023 for the cost of demolition and of damage to the environment. Section 12A, 2023: a power to prohibit, by order, prescribed pharmacologically active substances, antimicrobial agents and other material harmful to human health.

Its origin: the Supreme Court's shrimp culture judgment of 1996, which ordered demolition of farms in the prohibited zone and the constitution of an authority.

Test yourself

1. What does "coastal aquaculture" mean under the Act? Since the 2023 amendment, rearing and cultivation of any life stages of fish, including crustacean, mollusc, finfish, seaweed or any other aquatic life, under controlled conditions, indoor or outdoor, in cement cisterns, ponds, pens, cages, rafts, enclosures or otherwise, in saline or brackish water in coastal areas, including production of brood stock, seed and grow out. It does not include fresh water aquaculture.

2. Name four functions of the Authority under section 11. To make regulations for the construction and operation of coastal aquaculture units; to inspect them to ascertain their environmental impact; to register them; and to order the removal or demolition of a unit causing pollution after hearing its occupier. Since 2023 it may also regulate or prohibit the number, species and method of coastal aquaculture through aqua zonation and aqua mapping, and fix standards for inputs and for effluent discharge.

3. Why does a shrimp farm cause salinity? Because it fills ponds with saline or brackish water in a coastal area, from which salt seeps into the shallow aquifer and the land behind, so that the wells turn brackish and the cultivated land stops producing.

4. What did the 2023 amendment add, and what does that tell you about the subject? Among other things, section 12A, a power for the Authority to prohibit by order the use of prescribed pharmacologically active substances, antimicrobial agents and other material harmful to human health; a retrospective recasting of section 13(8), which removed the rule against coastal aquaculture within two hundred metres of the high tide line; the validation in sections 27 and 28; and civil penalties in place of imprisonment in section 14. It shows that aquaculture regulation has moved from an environmental concern towards food safety and the regularisation of the industry.