Under National Ranching programme for conservation and restoration of fishes of the Ganga river 10,000 Mahsheer fish fingerlings released into the Ganga river at Devprayag, by ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute. Advance size fingerlings Mahsheer fishes were ranched in the august presence of Shradhey Acharya Balakrishna ji, Vice Chancellor, Patanjali University, and Co Founder Patanjali Yogpith, Haridwar, Dr. B. K. Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI and Dr. Sandeep Behera Senior Consultant Biodiversity, NMCG, New Delhi. The event was organized under the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) project in association with Pantajali Sevashram, Mulya Gaon, Devprayag, Uttarakhand.
Dr. B.K. Das, Director of the institute informed that ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), Barrackpore has been entrusted by GOI under Namani Gange (NMCG) for restoration and conservation of depleted fishes of the river Ganga. The targeted species are Mahsheer in the upper stretch, IMC (Rohu, Catla, Mrigal and Calbasu) in the middle stretch and precious Hilsa fish in the lower stretch. So far more than 90 lakhs fish seeds have been ranched at different locations and more than 20 lakh were released in the previous two months only under National River Ranching Program. The target is to ranched more than one crore in the coming years.
The chief guest of the occasion, Acharya Shri Balakrishna ji, explained the importance of the river Ganga for human civilization and called for keeping it clean.
Dr. Sandeep Behera, briefed about the importance of Namami Gange programme for Ganga river. Prof. Prakash Nautiyal from Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna University also addressed the people and urged to save the Ganga river.
Some cast nets were distributed among the fishermen residing on the bank of Ganga. The program was attended by the pilgrims, students, fishermen from nearby villages, fish traders, and local people living on the banks of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi . Dr. Dharm Nath Jha, Senior Scientist and head of the Centre, welcomed the guest and vote of thanks was given by Dr V. R. Thakur. It was assured that with the participation of the society objectives of this project will be achieved successfully.
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