• Numerous biotic and abiotic stresses have resulted in the decline of Indian Major Carps (IMC) from river Ganga in the past few decades. Replenishing indigenous fish stocks has become a prime concern recently. River ranching through captive breeding techniques will undoubtedly add to the ex-situ conservation of native fish species to restore in Ganga. In accordance with this, the river ranching programme of Indian Major Carps (IMC), namely Labeo rohita (Rohu), Labeo catla (Catla), Cirrhinus mrigala (Mrigala) and Labeo calbasu (Kalbasu) was first initiated by ICAR-CIFRI under NMCG project in different river stretches of Ganga from 2017 onwards.
• The fishes were bred captive and raised to fingerling size (>15.0 cm). Fish fingerlings (>15.0 cm) were transported and acclimatized before ranching in river waters. Till date, 143.84 lakh fingerlings comprising of Indian Major Carps and Mahseer have been released in 127 ranching events from 2017 to 2024.
• Majority of the river ranching was conducted in the state of West Bengal (64%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (1
• 5%), Bihar (13%), Jharkhand (7%), and Uttarakhand (1%) respectively.
  

Impact of ranching

• Landing of Rohu, Catla and Mrigal during 2018-2022 has shown an increasing trend in Ganga. However, there was a lesser catch in 2021 due to the lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. The share of IMC in the total landing of fish catch showed an increasing trend during 2018-2022. It was about 8.50 % in the year 2018, which has increase to 14.31% in 2022.
• The increase in the share of IMC in the total landing and simultaneous decrease in the share of exotic fishes in the Prayagraj stretch of the Ganga river system reflects that the conservation attempt of IMC through Ranching activity helps in the restoration of IMC in the Ganga river.
• The data was also collected on the species landing from the middle and lower stretch of river Ganga covering three states (Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal) to asses for the seasonal patterns in fish landings and catch per unit effort (CPUE). The annual fish catch landing ranged from 348.2 tonnes in East Burdwan (West Bengal) to 6988.1tonnes in Patna (Bihar), and total catch from the middle and lower stretch of river Ganga was estimated to be 43584.41 tonnes per annum (2022-2023).