By C Debnath, SG Singh, A Lenin Singh, S Ghatak & G Kadirvel
The chocolate mahseer (Neolissochilus hexagonolepis), called Khasaw in Khasi and Na-rang in Garo, became the state fish of Meghalaya on 5 May 2026. Nagaland and Sikkim had adopted it earlier, in 2007 and 2021. The honour is deserved. The fish is prized as food, fetching Rs 600 per kg, and anglers value it for its fight. Because it lives only where the water is clean and cold, its presence shows a healthy river. That same dependence makes it vulnerable. Destructive fishing with poison and dynamite, the netting of young fish, and the silting, pollution and damming of rivers have all reduced its numbers. IUCN lists it as Near Threatened, whereas ICAR-NBFGR places it in the Endangered category for India, and its abundance in Meghalaya has clearly declined.
Such pressure is hard to withstand because of the way the fish breeds. A female produces few eggs, as low as 8,726, against the lakhs laid by Indian major carps. Breeding runs from May to September, peaking in August, and ripe fish have been recorded in running water channels. When a net or poison takes one gravid female, thousands of future fish go with her. The spawner, more than any other fish, must therefore be protected.
Hatchery seed can reduce the pressure on wild stock, and ICAR NEH, Umiam, has made a start. Scientists there have bred the fish by stripping ripe brooders and fertilising the eggs by the dry method, without hormones. Fertilisation was 80 to 85%, hatching 75 to 80%, and 92% of the fry survived to 60 days. In a two-year trial, polyhouse ponds gave fish of 112 g against 83 g in open ponds, with higher survival and 56.5% more biomass. All this is still at pilot scale. The next steps are a brood bank in each drainage and a community level portable hatchery to supply fingerlings locally.
Hatchery success is only half the story. In our surveys for a cryopreservation project, males were very hard to find in the rivers, which limits the milt we can freeze. The fish also matures slowly in ponds, being a flowing water species. In winter, wild fish are heavily hit by Saprolegnia, a water mould that forms cottony patches on the skin, and we saw mass mortality. A brood bank with running water, winter disease watch and gentle handling of wild fish are therefore needed.
Recovery is realistic when rules are kept. Striped bass on the American Atlantic coast were protected by moratoria from 1985, and the stock was declared recovered by 1995. In Bangladesh, closed seasons and protected breeding grounds under a plan of 2003 coincided with a rise in hilsa output from 0.2 to 0.52 million tonnes between 2000-01 and 2017-18. Hilsa was overfished rather than endangered, but the lesson holds. Nearer home, pengba in Manipur and pabda in Tripura, both state fishes, are now reared in ponds with hatchery seed and sell at Rs 400 to 500 per kg. If they can enter pond aquaculture, why not the chocolate mahseer? What it lacks is priority, public awareness and a steady supply of seed.
Seed alone will not be enough; the rivers need guardians, and the village is the natural starting point. The Amalayee sanctuary was instituted in 1955, after the Lyngdoh, the traditional religious head, banned fishing there following a village dispute, and Meghalaya had 79 community managed sanctuaries by 2021. The Dorbar Shnong, the traditional village council, can manage them, as village councils in Manipur and Meghalaya did in 2021 when they declared fish conservation zones. Women should lead this work, since in matrilineal Khasi society they are the usual custodians of ancestral land and forests. Their self help groups can run nurseries, process fish and collect entry fees, while unemployed youth can serve as river guards and angling guides. A young person who earns from a live fish has every reason to protect it.
Large farmers can help too, and we propose a voluntary policy. Those holding a water body above 10 ha could reserve 5 to 10% of its area for mahseer and other indigenous fish, supported through the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY). Marginal and small farmers cannot be asked to do the same, as they depend on every pond. The reserved area would be kept free of exotic carp and managed under rules agreed with the Dorbar Shnong. Certified hatchery bred juveniles could also be shown in tanks at hotels and resorts, so that tourists see the state fish alive and owners earn from it. This is a proposal, not an existing rule.
Tourism can add to this income. Mawlynnong in East Khasi Hills, named Asia’s cleanest village in 2003, can pair its name with the state fish through a sanctuary, a tank at the village entrance and a guide who tells visitors the story of Khasaw. Hotels and tour operators can invest and share the income, while ICAR NEH and the Fisheries Department supply seed and technical help.
Simple rules should back these efforts. Brooders should be protected from July to September, undersized and egg-bearing fish released, and dynamite, bleaching powder, plant poisons and electric fishing with generators or batteries avoided, as East Garo Hills has already ordered. Males mature at about 17 cm and females at about 18 cm, so we propose a minimum catch size well above this, with a closed season from May to September, or at least July to September. To our knowledge, such limits do not exist now for this fish. Awareness must reach the roadside and the classroom: hoardings in Khasi, Garo and Pnar at bridges with a number to report poisoning, school pools for rearing fingerlings for release on National Fish Farmers’ Day, 10 July, and exhibitions on World Fisheries Day, 21 November. Catch and release with trained guides, a village share of fees and prizes for returning tagged fish would ensure that a live mahseer earns more than a dead one.
Saving Khasaw is not a job for scientists alone. Hatcheries can supply seed, but only villages, schools and anglers can keep the rivers safe. These efforts also serve wider goals, from conserving freshwater ecosystems to income for women and youth in hill villages. A female carrying 8,726 or more eggs deserves to reach the spawning ground alive. If we protect the spawner and restore the river, the chocolate mahseer can move from endangered to abundant. The state has given the fish its name; now it must give it its rivers.
(The authors are from the ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region, Umiam, Meghalaya)
