Context. The gharial is a critically endangered freshwater riverine crocodilian found in few Indo-Gangetic rivers and the Mahanadi River. With very few individuals remaining, the species in the Mahanadi River is on the verge of extirpation and requires conservation attention for their continuous existence. Although essential ecological information is available here to an extent, the human dimensions of gharial conservation is overlooked.

Aim. Therefore, we aimed to examine the dependencies of local people on the Mahanadi River and their perceptions of gharial conservation.

Methods. Opportunistic method was used to select respondents, and an open and close-ended questionnaire was used for survey. Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were used for data analysis.

Key results. The Mahanadi River played crucial role in respondents’ lives who depend on the river in both tangible and intangible ways such as earning their livelihoods and performing everyday sanitation and minerals extraction. Initially, most of the respondents perceived gharials negatively, which could be attributed to their lack of awareness about gharial ecology and behaviour. However, age, awareness and incentives provided for gharial conservation influenced respondents to positively perceive gharial conservation in the Mahanadi River.

Conclusion. The study observed how lack of awareness negatively affects gharial conservation effort in the Mahanadi River as people perceive threat from gharials as similar to mugger and saltwater crocodiles, both of which are much more dangerous to humans than gharials.

Implications. The finding can be taken into consideration to promote awareness about gharial ecology and behaviour among the locals with warning information on muggers and saltwater crocodiles in the Mahanadi River. That may be useful for gharial conservation.