Guwahati, Thursday, April 6, 2006
STATE

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Assamese scientist heads fishing institute
By A Staff Reporter
 GUWAHATI, April 5 – Dr PC Mahanta, Principal Scientist, National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources (NBFGR), Lucknow, has joined as Director, National Research Centre on Coldwater Fisheries, Bhimtal, district Nainital, Uttaranchal under Indian Council of Agricultural, a press release said.

Mahanta, who has taken over the post of Director on February 7, 2006, happens to be the first Assamese scientist to serve as Director in Fisheries Research under the ICAR system. He is the recipient of VG Jhingran Memorial gold medal and fellow of various national scientific societies like AEB, NATCON, BIOVED, ZSI, etc. He is the honorary member of Sustainable Use Specialist Group (SUSG) of IUCN. He has done some pioneering work on species breeding and aquaculture.

Dr Mahanta introduced the Live Gene Banking Programme on Threatened Fish Species successfully in Lucknow, Guwahati and Tripura. He has developed an efficient networking project in the entire North-east region including Sikkim on resource assessment, people’s participatory approach, Atlas on NE fish diversity and ornamental fish (under process). He did his postgraduation from Gauhati University and Ph.D from Dr. R.M.L. Avadh University, Faizabad. Dr. Mahanta also worked as Advisor (Fisheries), NEC, Shillong. He has published more than 60 research papers, books, informative booklets, VCDs, etc.