PATNA: Patna University (PU) is likely to have Asia's first Dolphin Research Centre soon. A detailed proposal to this effect is being sent by the state planning secretary to the Planning Commission.
Gangetic dolphin expert and Central University of Bihar's environmental science department head Ravindra Kumar Sinha told here on 15 th April, Sunday that the idea of setting up this centre was mooted when Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia visited Patna on February 18 this year and watched dolphins in the Ganga. He offered all financial help in setting up this centre. Later, chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, at a meeting of the state wildlife board, endorsed the proposal and asked the planning secretary to go ahead with the proposal, Sinha said.
The proposed centre would be located on the bank of the Ganga near PU. Earlier, a proposal to this effect was sent to the Union government in 1996, but it could not materialize then for some reasons.
Sinha, who is the chairperson of the working group for dolphin conservation set up by the central government and a member of the National Ganga Basin Authority, said that the centre's research activities would be focused around the conservation of dolphins. The population of Gangetic dolphins has reduced considerably during the last few decades.
The Gangetic river dolphin is India's national aquatic animal, but frequently falls prey to poachers. Their carcasses are found regularly on river banks. The mammals are killed at an alarming rate, with wildlife officials saying poachers kill them for their flesh and oil, which are used as an ointment and aphrodisiac. Gangetic river dolphins fall under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act and have been declared an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Last year, Bihar government decided to set up a task force for the conservation of endangered species.
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