The amendments proposed to the Kerala Marine Fisheries Regulations Act (KMFRA)may in the long-run help revive the fisheries sector, which is threatened by resource depletion. “It won’t be an overnight development. We can’t implement this within a time-frame. There is a need to sensitise the sector because it has become important to reduce the fishing effort to revive the sector,” said Leela Edwin, head, fisheries technology division, CIFT. One of the highlights of the new draft is the regulation of boat building yards. The new section will be inserted as 9A in KMFR Act for the regulation of yards making fishing vessels. The rule aims to ensure that no fishing vessel of more than 12 m shall be constructed with an intention to be used for fishing without obtaining prior permission for the design from authorized officer. There should be provision to penalise the owner of boat yard orand to decommission the vessel at the cost of owner of fishing vesselboat yard in case of violation, during construction without any compensation, the draft proposes.. “We hope to monitor this at the manufacturing phase itself. We will have to inspect and ensure a system so that boat owners will have to get the engines verified and the entire boat building will be monitored in stages,” said Sandhya R, joint director of fisheries. “We have an unregulated sector with an oversized fishing fleet. We hope these changes would help in reviving the sector,” Leela Edwin said.