Patna: On Monday, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar inaugurated India’s first-ever dolphin research centre in Patna. Built at a cost of Rs 30 crore, the National Dolphin Research Center (NDRC) stands on the banks of the Ganges inside the Patna University campus and will help students and researchers understand the behaviour of freshwater dolphins, particularly of those found in the Ganges.
Speaking at the inauguration, Bihar Chief Wildlife Warden P.K. Gupta said that the NDRC marks a milestone in the research of environment and forest animals in India.
“It is the result of the efforts of honourable CM Nitish Kumar that the Gangetic River Dolphin was declared the national aquatic animal in the year 2009. It is a matter of happiness that the state of Bihar has got the country’s only national dolphin research institute. This research centre will help scientists, academicians and research students in understanding and researching the behavior of freshwater dolphins. This institute will be established as a center of excellence in future.”
Environmentalists, too, see NDRC’s establishment as a major boon. “The presence of dolphins in a river is very important for a river’s ecosystem. If the number of dolphins increases in a river, then it can be said that the river’s climate is good,” said Kavi Nishant Bharadwaj Rajput, founder of Dharti Foundation, to ThePrint.
“There is a good number of dolphins in the Ganga and its tributaries in Bihar. Establishment of NDRC will help in research. I myself visited the research centre last month. There are separate labs for every field of study related to dolphins, which will help a lot in research. Such a research centre will help in connecting nature with society,” he added.
The Ganges dolphin was officially discovered in the year 1801. They live in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems of Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Hunting of Ganga dolphins is prohibited under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. According to a count conducted by the Bihar government, there were 1,048 dolphins in the Ganges in 2018.
NDRC was scheduled to be inaugurated in December last year but due to delays in completion of work, it was postponed. The foundation stone of this institute was laid by Nitish Kumar in the year 2020.
The NDRC project was approved in 2013 by then Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia on the request of Professor R.K. Sinha — also known as the Dolphin Man of India — who was the Professor of Zoology at Patna University at the time (he is currently the vice-chancellor of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University).
The project, however, faced delays in construction due to lack of approval from Bihar’s building construction department. This setback stemmed from the project site’s proximity to the Ganga River, situated just 200 meters away, causing a delay in obtaining a no-objection certificate (NOC) for construction to proceed.
Vivek Suhani, an environmental science alumnus at Patna University and currently a research scholar at National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM), Kundli, told ThePrint, “The NDRC will be of great help to Bihar, especially students living in Patna who are interested in research in environment. Apart from dolphins, this institute will also help in understanding the ecosystem of the river and aquatic ecology.”
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