Director General, ICAR dedicates National Fish Museum and Repository to the nation

14th April 2023, Lucknow.

The National Fish Museum and Repository at the ICAR - National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Lucknow was dedicated to the nation by Dr Himanshu Pathak, Secretary (DARE) and Director General (ICAR) here today.

Dr Pathak while interacting with the scientists and staff of ICAR-NBFGR, called for coming up with innovative ideas so that emerging issues and challenges faced by our farmers and fisher folks are addressed through the use of science and technology.

The Director General visited various facilities including live fish germplasm resources center, farm and hatchery, and Ganga aquarium. He also released fingerlings of prioritized fish species in ponds of live fish germplasm resource center. The application of drone technology in aquaculture farm was also demonstrated.

Dr.. J. K. Jena, Deputy Director General (Fisheries Science), Dr. U. K. Sarkar, Director ICAR-NBFGR, Lucknow, and the Directors of ICAR institutes at Lucknow were present on the occasion.

Dr.Himanshu Pathak highlighted the genesis and importance of the establishment of the National Fish Museum and Repository at ICAR-NBFGR and said this state-of-the-art facility will be immensely helpful to taxonomists and other researchers.

Dr. Sarkar appraised the significant achievements in key thematic areas of aquatic genetic resources of the country.

The dignitaries also released the institute’s publication during the occasion.

ICAR-NBFGR was also designated as the nodal repository agency for fish germplasm resources under section 39 of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 by the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), Government of India, and the institute has strengthened its status by establishing a National Fish Museum and Repository.

The newly developed museum displays finfish and shellfish voucher specimens of freshwater, marine, and brackish water environments for research and the general public. The museum holds a radiographic facility to comprehensively understand fish morphological features. The museum presently holds specimens of 1200 finfish species and 250 molluscan species found in India and aims to hold voucher specimens of all finfish and shellfish resources of India in the future. DNA and tissue repository at the museum contains 19000 tissue accessions belonging to commercial/prioritized fish species. The repository possesses a cryobank of fish sperm and developed cryopreservation technology for 31 fish species. The microbial repository established here aims to store and preserve aquatic animal pathogens important for fish and public health research and development. National Repository of Fish Cell Lines (NRFC) which is the world’s largest collection of fish cell lines with 81 cell line accessions is also located in the repository. In connection with this national facility, five days training programme on integrated fish taxonomy and systematics of Finfish and Shellfish was also inaugurated with 27 trainees from various parts of the country.

(Source: ICAR - National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Lucknow).