The journey of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), popularly known as Pusa Institute, began in 1905 at Pusa (Bihar) with the generous grant of 30,000 pounds from an American philanthropist, Mr. Henry Phipps. The institute was then known as Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) which functioned with five departments, namely Agriculture, Cattle Breeding, Chemistry, Economic Botany and Mycology. Bacteriology unit was added in 1907. The name of ARI was changed to Imperial Institute of Agricultural Research in 1911 and, in 1919 it was renamed as Imperial Agricultural Research Institute. Following a devastating earth quake on 15th January 1934, the institute was shifted to Delhi on 29th July 1936. Post independence, the institute has been renamed as Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI).
During the fifties, the advancement of scientific disciplines constituted the core program of IARI and provided the base for its fast expansion in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It attained the status of a Deemed University in the year 1958. The green revolution that brought smiles to millions of Indians bloomed from the fields of IARI with the development of famous wheat varieties which contributed an estimated on billion tones of addition production. As the Mother of several ICAR institutions, IARI continues to be the leading institution for agricultural research, education and extension in the country.
The present campus of the Institute is a self-contained sylvan complex spread over an area of about 500 hectares (approx. 1250 acres) and located about 8 km (5 miles) west of New Delhi Railway Station and about 16 km (10 miles) east of IGI Airport (Palam). The location stands at 28.08 0N and 77.12 0E, the height above mean sea level being 228.61 meters (750 feet). It is adjacent to hillside road.
Currently, the Institute has 20 divisions 5 multi-disciplinary Centres situated in Delhi, 8 regional stations, 2 off-season nurseries, 3 All India coordinated research projects with headquarters at IARI and 10 national Centres functioning under the all India coordinated research projects. It has the sanctioned staff strength of 3540 comprising scientific, technical, administrative and supporting personnel.
Mandate
Basic, strategic and anticipatory research in field and horticultural crops for enhanced productivity and quality.
Research in frontier areas to develop resource use efficient integrated crop management technologies for sustainable agricultural production system.
Serve as centre for academic excellence in the areas of post-graduate and human resources development in agricultural science.
Provide national leadership in agricultural research, education, extension and technology assessment and transfer by developing new concepts and approaches and serving as a national referral point for quality and standards.
Objectives
Research
Emphasize utilization of global plant genetic resources, including conservation of agriculturally important microbial, cyanobacterial and insect resources, to produce efficient, productive and stable genotypes of crops, especially hybrids and improve bioenergenetics.
Generate Knowledge related to the processes of production and productivity of agricultural crops leading to the development of research philosophies, concepts, methodologies, materials and technologies.
Develop and use systems approach, crop modelling, bioindicators, nuclear tools, remote sensing and GIS to achieve greater understanding of the production systems, the resources, the environment and their sustainability and modify them to reduce the environmental and human health risks to make them more sustainable in the context of holistic ecological and socio-economic systems.
Pay greater attention to the problems of agriculture under unfavourable conditions and to orphan commodities.
Foster excellence in agriculture related to basic and social sciences, strengthen synergism between traditional knowledge and modern science, and harness management sciences and communication systems for improving overall efficiency.
Develop capabilities in post-harvest technology, agro-processing, product development, value addition and utilization research on agricultural commodities, by-products, agricultural wastes and renewable energy resources.
Concentrate on new and emerging cutting edge technologies such as molecular biology and biotechnology and develop inter-disciplinary centres of excellence with modern instrumentation and foster system research.
Education
Promote excellence, foster high standard and orient the educational programme towards future needs and opportunities.
Strengthen physical, biological and social sciences in the curricular and add frontier areas such as biotechnology, computer application and information technology, environmental science, management science and post-harvest technology and agricultural biodiversity and genetic resources.
Provide opportunities for post-doctoral research, continuing education, faculty upgradation and development of human resources in new and cutting edge technology areas, especially through international collaboration.
Strengthen non-formal training to promote entrepreneurial skills and commercialization of agriculture.
Extension
Generate innovative extension models, dovetail them to developmental models, and disseminate them through regional stations, universities and state extension systems.
Promote client oriented on-farm research and technology assessment, refinement and transfer through participatory approaches and by promoting the Institute-Village Linkage Programme.
Foster development communication research and linkages with rural development programmes and strengthen micro-planning through inter departmental and participatory approaches.
Information
Strengthen IARI Library to become the national agricultural library, fully equipped with electronic and other modern tools, connect it with libraries in SAUs, ICAR institutes and other relevant centres, Build databases on agricultural research and share them with all bonafide user throughout the world.
Add value to information and use it for analysing impact of research and technology development on national agriculture and for setting research priorities.
Develop a modern information and communication centre and the knowhow for dissemination of information, carry out training and promote communication on inter-personal skill enhancement.
