National River Ranching programme at Patna

Patna(KCN) :

ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CIFRI), Barrackpore organized ‘National Ranching Programme-2023’ under Namami Gange Programme at Patna for fish conservation and restoration of river Ganga. Till date more than 88 lakhs of fishes have been ranched under the ICAR-CIFRI-NMCG project in different riverine stretch of river Ganga flowing through Indian states. In continuation of this, a ranching cum awareness programme was organized at Raja Ghat, Patna, Bihar in the presence of Dr. Rameshwar Singh Hon’ble Vice Chancellor BASU, Patna. Dr. Basanta Kumar Das, Director ICAR-CIFRI and Prinicipal Investigator, NMCG project highlighted the importance of ranching and conservation in river Ganga. A total of 2.0 Lakh artificially bred wild fish germplasm of Rohu, Catla, Mrigal and Calbasu seeds were released into the river at Raja Ghat. Above all the species Catla contributed the most(60%) with average size of 400 g. The event was also attended by Dr. Kamlesh Sharma ,HoD, ICAR-RCER Patna, Shri N. Jawahar,Principal cheif conservator of Forest (climate change and wetland Bihar ) and dignitaries from Dept. Of Fisheries, Bihar and CRPF Patna. The efforts of ICAR-CIFRI will help in boosting the livelihood of then local fishers beside conservation of native fish germplasm.
Besides ranching program, a public awareness program was also organised ICAR-CIFRI, where more than 50 local fisher folks were present and promised to participate in govt. initiative for sustainable fisheries of river Ganga .
In this present program, active participation of fishers were observed. Besides this distribution of fishing nets were also provided to local fishers of Ganga.