Kayrilo · Field GuideThe Industry Series
A playbook for

Sea
Fisheries
Payroll.

From jetty to bank in twelve days. The blueprint we've used in 180+ implementations across India's coast — trawlers, cooperatives, processing plants and cold-storage units.

Subject
Sea Fisheries · India
Revision
May 2026 · v3.2
Authors
Kayrilo Field Team
Status
In production
Chapter 01The lay of the land

The largest workforce
you've never budgeted for.

Indian sea fisheries employ more people than the country's entire IT services sector — and are paid through systems that haven't materially changed in forty years.
7,517 km
of coastline
9 states · 4 UTs
28 Lakh
marine workers
FY 2025–26
4 Lakh+
fishing vessels
All classes
5,200+
fishing villages
Notified

Active marine workers, by state

Lakhs · FY 2025–26
Tamil Nadu
6.5 L
Gujarat
4.8 L
Kerala
4.2 L
Maharashtra
3.6 L
Andhra Pradesh
3.0 L
Odisha
2.1 L
Karnataka
1.4 L
West Bengal
1.2 L

Fleet composition — how Indian fisheries are paid

% of vessel registrations
42%
36%
18%
4%
Traditional, non-motorised
Motorised
Mechanised trawlers
Other
Chapter 02Why it breaks

Six things every
generic HRMS misses.

A generic monthly-cycle HR system fails on the very first night a boat returns. Here are the six places it cracks first.
Featured problem

Catch-day pay, not calendar pay.

Wages aren't a monthly cycle. They're owed the night a boat returns — sometimes at 3am, often against a catch log scribbled on a slate at sea.

72 hrs
typical lag from dock to first wage, pre-Kayrilo
Problem33% no-phone

Signs on by mark, not by login.

A third of trawler crew have no smartphone on a 10-day trip. Aadhaar OTP fails at sea — onboarding has to happen on the jetty.

Problem3 parties

Two layers of contractors.

Boat owner contracts a tindel, who hires the crew. CLRA liability splits three ways.

Problem31% linked

PF that nobody opts in to.

Trawler in May, mango farm in July. EPFO portability exists; UAN linkage rarely does.

Problem5 share rules

Share-of-catch, not wage.

Engine man 8%, tindel 12%, rest split equally. No HRMS in India models this natively.

ProblemMixed regime

Cold storage on permanent rolls.

The 30-strong cold storage next door is on monthly wages, ESI and gratuity — a parallel regime running alongside.

Chapter 03The rollout

Twelve days from
paper muster to first cycle.

The slowest part of this plan is your auditor's sign-off on encoded wage rules. Everything else moves quickly.

12-day implementation plan

Day 0 → Day 12
Phase
D0
D1
D2
D3
D4
D5
D6
D7
D8
D9
D10
D11
D12
01Pre-mortem
02Worker onboarding
03Wage rules encoded
04Compliance dry run
05Bank rails wired
06First live cycle
Step 01Day 0

Pre-mortem on the jetty.

A field rep spends 48 hours on-site documenting every wage path — owner, tindel, processor, cold storage. We map current Form V, attendance slates and challan history.

Step 02Day 1–3

Worker onboarding, by class.

Permanent staff (ESI, PF) go in first. Crew workers (catch-day, share-based) are onboarded by biometric or PAN at the jetty desk — no app required.

Step 03Day 4–6

Wage rules, encoded.

Catch-day share rates, OT under MS Act, processing piece-rate, cold storage shift differential — each formula is encoded once, reviewed by your auditor, and signed off.

Step 04Day 7–9

Compliance dry run.

Run last month's data through Kayrilo. Form 25, ESIC return, PF challan, MFRA wage record. Compare line-by-line against what you filed manually.

Step 05Day 10–11

Bank rails wired up.

IMPS, NEFT, Aadhaar-Payment-Bridge and BC cash-out — set up so a boat returning at 3am can settle wages before the crew steps off the jetty.

Step 06Day 12

First live cycle.

A Kayrilo engineer is on the jetty. The HR manager runs the cycle. We don't leave until every worker has confirmed receipt — by SMS, voice call, or in person.

Chapter 04Compliance map

Eight statutes,
one trawler.

A single 18-metre trawler with a permanent skipper and a contracted crew of 12 touches all eight of these Acts every quarter.
8
statutes touched per quarter
12
forms filed monthly
0
missed filings since rollout
Statute
Who it applies to
Form & cadence
Merchant Shipping Act
Crew on registered vessels > 24 m
Form 19A · per voyage
Marine Fisheries Regulation Acts
State-level licences (KMFRA, MMFRA, etc.)
Wage register · monthly
Contract Labour (R&A) Act
Tindel / contractor-supplied crew
Form V & XIII · monthly
EPF & MP Act, 1952
Permanent processing & cold storage staff
ECR · monthly
ESI Act, 1948
Workers earning under ₹21,000/month
Half-yearly return
Code on Wages, 2019
Minimum wages by state notification
Form IV · annual
Maternity Benefit Act
Female workers in processing plants
Form L, M, N · per case
BOCW Act
Jetty / cold-storage construction
Welfare cess · per project
Chapter 05A day in May

One trawler. Six hours.
Twelve workers paid.

The same wage cycle, before Kayrilo, took eleven days and required a clerk at Veraval and one at Ahmedabad.
04:00Six-hour wage cycle · 31 May 202610:00
04:12
05:30
06:00
06:08
07:00
09:30
04:12 IST
Boat returns.
MV Lakshmi Devi, 18 m mechanised trawler, docks at Veraval after a 9-day trip. Catch logged at the auction shed: 3.2 tonnes, mostly pomfret.
05:30 IST
Tindel approves share split.
On a tablet at the jetty office: 8% engine man, 12% tindel, 7% cook, balance split equally across 9 crew. Approved with biometric.
06:00 IST
Wages calculated.
Kayrilo applies share rules + MS Act overtime for the extra-day voyage. Net per-crew: ₹4,820. PF applied for the two crew with UAN.
06:08 IST
Payouts dispatched.
IMPS for 7 crew with bank accounts. Aadhaar-Payment-Bridge for 2 others. SMS confirmations in Gujarati.
07:00 IST
Cold storage shift begins.
Onshore staff clock in via biometric. Their cycle runs on the 7th of each month — same dashboard tracks both.
09:30 IST
Form V auto-updated.
The contractor register reflects the crew's earnings, splits liability between owner and tindel, and queues the entry for the next monthly filing.
Chapter 06What changes at scale

Average across
our first 180 rollouts.

Numbers below are medians, not best-case examples. Drawn from rollouts spanning Veraval, Tuticorin, Kochi, Mangaluru and Visakhapatnam.

Time to first wage after docking

−99%
Before72 hours
After Kayrilo< 1 hour

Catch-day pay errors

−97%
Before~4 %
After Kayrilo< 0.1 %

Form V filings on time

+61%
Before62 %
After Kayrilo100 %

Worker grievances per 100

−89%
Before18 / mo
After Kayrilo2 / mo

HR clerks per 1,000 workers

−74%
Before4.2
After Kayrilo1.1

PF UAN linkage rate

+203%
Before31 %
After Kayrilo94 %
Chapter 07The economics

What it
actually costs.

Most fisheries cooperatives recover the cost of Kayrilo inside one quarter — from fewer reconciliation hours, fewer compliance penalties, and lower worker attrition.
₹38per worker / month
Kayrilo subscription
Volume tier for 250+ workers
₹0setup
Onboarding included
Two field reps at your jetty for 12 days
4.3 mo
Average payback period
Across our first 180 rollouts
1.6%of wage bill
Total operating cost
Less than what a single late-filing penalty costs

Payback timeline

Month 1 → 12
Payback · M 4.3
Month 1
Month 4
Month 8
Month 12
Investment phase
Cumulative net savings
End of playbook

Bring it to your
jetty.

Tell us where you operate. A Kayrilo field rep will be there inside seven days for the on-site pre-mortem.