Indian oil sardine is a highly migratory pelagic distributing along the Indian Ocean from northern and western parts of Arabian sea, Gulf of Aden and Gulf of Oman, till southeastern coast of India (Froese and Pauly 2024). In Pakistan, resources are managed at province level:

• Balochistan province (current profile)
• Sindh province.

Pakistani small pelagic fisheries capture the species using surrounding nets, locally known as katra (FAO 2009). In the Balochistan province, no regular assessments have been found, however a recent university study estimating fishing mortality is available (Baset et al. 2020).