One of the most significant commercial fishes in the Indo-Pacific is the Hilsa shad, (Tenualosa ilisha) is now focused as a objective to increase the natural stock of Hilsa in river Ganga (upstream of Farraka barrage) through ranching of wild-collected Hilsa seed/juvenile. Migration of Hilsa and life history patterns are monitored through Floy tagging and advanced techniques through tags. Hilsa, collected in live conditions from downstream of the Farakka barrage, were transported upstream to increase their population in the middle stretch of the river Ganga.

Till date 1,22,423 Hilsa adults fish were released in upstream of the Farakka barrage during the period of 2020 to 2024. The average length and weight of the ranched fishes were 26.37±4.17 cm and 263.51±18.97 g. The number of ranched Hilsa was almost 3.3 times higher during the second year compared to the 1st year of the phase II project but in the third year it 1.7 times. A good monsoon found to be the favorable condition of Hilsa migration during the 2nd year, which resulted in higher numbers of Hilsa ranching.

A total of 3,865 numbers of Hilsa were tagged to assess their upstream migration starting from 2020  to  2024. The tagging programme was widely circulated through various means of communications such as creating mass awareness, placing posters / pamphlets of ranching fish & through writing articles in newspapers on Hilsa conservation among the fishermen from Farakka to Allahabad in upstream and also downstream of Farakka Barrage for recovery report to analyze the migration pattern of Hilsa in the selected study stretch.