Puntius madhusoodani, a new species of barb is described from Manimala River, Kerala, South India. This species can be distinguished from all its congeners by the combination of following characters: presence of one pair of short maxillary barbels less than eye diameter and 4.39% in SL, a smaller snout forming 8.06% in SL, 25-26 lateral line scales; dorsal fin inserted nearer to tip of snout, than to caudal fin base; absence of spot at the dorsal fin base; paired fins hyaline, and the branched rays of the dorsal and anal fin tinted with black.