NBPGR Recruitment 2022 For Technical Assistant

The need for establishment of an organization to undertake activities of plant introduction and germplasm augmentation for use in crop improvement was felt as early as 1935 by the Crops and Soil Wing of the then Board of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. The need was reiterated in a meeting of the Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding in 1941, which inter alia discussed the subject of economic crops. Dr. B.P. Pal, working at IARI approached the then Imperial (now Indian) Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to set up a unit for assembly of global germplasm under phytosanitary conditions in India. The ICAR scheme for Plant Introduction commenced functioning in 1946 in the then Botany Division of IARI under the leadership of the Late Dr. Harbhajan Singh as the first Operational Scientist. The unit was further expanded and strengthened as Plant Introduction and Exploration Organization in the Botany Division in 1956, and later developed as a separate Division of Plant Introduction in IARI in 1961. Subsequently, on the recommendations of the High Level Committee constituted by the Government of India in 1970, the Division of Plant Introduction was upgraded to an independent institute National Bureau of Plant Introduction in August 1976 which was rechristened as National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in January 1977.