River ranching by Women Fishers at Balagarh, West Bengal under National Ranching Programme -2022

6^th December 2022, Balagarh

ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore conducted its mega ‘National Ranching Programme-2022’ under Namami Gange at Balagarh, West Bengal for the conservation and restoration of river Ganga. Till date more than 60 lakhs of fish have been ranched under the CIFRI-NMCG project.

The Balagarh area of river Ganga has always been the source of Indian Major Carps (IMCs) throughout the year. However, in recent years the population of IMC has shown a declining trend as reflected by the catches from fisher folks. Therefore, to replenish the stock ICAR-CIFRI has already ranched more than 4 lakhs advance fish fingerlings since 2018. In continuation of this, a ranching cum awareness programme was organized at Balagarh Ferry Ghat in Hooghly district of West Bengal under the leadership of Dr Basanta Kumar Das, Director CIFRI and PI NMCG project. 1.15 Lakh artificially bred wild fish germplasm of Rohu, Catla and Mrigal fingerlings were released into the river Ganga at Balagarh in association with the ‘Sripur Balagarh Fishermen Cooperative Society’. The ranching was carried out by 32 active fisherwomen during the event.

Besides ranching, an awareness programme was also organised by ICAR-CIFRI where local fisher folks interacted with CIFRI team focusing on hilsa and dolphin conservation in the area. The joint efforts of the society and ICAR-CIFRI will develop in boosting of livelihood of the fishermen beside the conservation of native fish. In this present program, active participation was noticed among all the sections of society. Besides this, more than 32 number of woman fishers also took part in the event and were sensitized regarding Ganga rejuvenation and restoration of prized Gangetic fishes.

(Source: ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore)