Tenualosa ilisha (Hamilton, 1822) is commonly known as Hilsa or Ilish and is one of the highly valued fishes of the Indo-Pacific region. It is an anadromous fish and is widely distributed in marine, estuarine and riverine ecosystems. It belongs to the family Clupeidae, sub-family Alosinae (Talwar and Jhingran 1991). Its distribution in Indian Ocean include Persian Gulf eastward to Myanmar, including western and eastern coasts of India (FishBase). Hilsa shad sustained a lucrative fishery in Hooghly-Bhagirathi river system, accounting for about 20–25% of total fish landing.

Funded by

Consortium Research Platform on Genomics, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (Ministry of Agriculture and farmers welfare) New Delhi -110012, India

Nodal Centre: ICAR- National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Lucknow, India