CIFRI Awards
The ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), Barrackpore organizes one day concluding workshop on “Stakeholders, Consultation cum Consultative Workshop on Fish Conservation and Ranching in River Ganga” on 26 September 2023 to address the accomplishment of the three-year project of NMCG, under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India. Dr. Basanta Kumar Das, Director of ICAR-CIFRI and Principal investigators, NMCG addressed the meeting and presented a brief outcome of the project and highlighted about the mission mode ranching and efforts taken up by the ICAR-CIFRI under this project where more than 65 lakhs of fish fingerlings were released during the period 2020-23 covering five states namely Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. He also underlined the impact of the recent ranching programme in the river Ganga which resulted in the increase in landing of IMC by 24.70% in Prayagraj, 41.03% in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh and more than 25% in Patna, Bihar. He highlighted that almost 140 public awareness programmes covering 10 thousand fishers were conducted under this project for conservation of aquatic biodiversity, and restoration of fish habitat in river Ganga. He also stressed that 227 lakhs of IMC seeds were produced during the project period. The project has many facet achievements by reaching the fishers and GOI has initiated several river ranching programmes across the country.
Dr. Sandeep Behera, Consultant - Biodiversity at NMCG, appreciated the ICAR-CIFRI efforts to increase fish production and conserve the native fish of River Ganga through river ranching programmes in various depleted parts of the river Ganga. Further he has told that the project has made its significant achievements over the years and its outcomes are highly visible.
Twelve fishermen from the local community engaged in fishing in this river were also present and expressed their gratitude to ICAR-CIFRI and shared their views on how this project helps in livelihood generation. They also expressed their concern over the use of zero mesh fishing nets and rampant use of poison for fishing in river Ganga.
Experts from West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, BOBP, WII, Dept of Fisheries, West Bengal, Scientist of ICAR-CIFE and ICAR-CIFRI, and research scholars participated in the workshop and express their opinion in different aspects of the project and emphasis that such type of research would generated a huge data for studying the biodiversity of Indian rivers and could attribute the ecosystem function and ecological integrity of the river. All are in the belief such intervention is most important in terms of biodiversity loss, climate change and addressing SDGs.
