Indian Council of Agricultural Research - Milestones

Milestones

• 1957: Initiation of the first All-India Co-ordinated Research Project on maize.
• 1958: Status of Deemed University accorded to IARI.
• 1960: Establishment of the first State Agricultural University on land grant pattern at Pantnagar.
• 1966: Placement of agricultural research institutes under the purview of ICAR.
• 1973: Creation of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) in the Ministry of Agriculture.
• 1974: Opening of first Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) at Pondicherry (Puducherry).
• 1975: Establishment of Agricultural Research Service and Agricultural Scientists' Recruitment Board.
• 1179: Launching of Lab-to-Land Programme and the National Agricultural Research Project (NARP).
• 1995: Initiation of institution-village linkage programme (IVLP).
• 1996: Establishment of National Gene Bank at New Delhi.
• 1989: The ICAR was bestowed with the King Baudouin Award for its contribution in ushering in the Green Revolution. Again awarded King Baudouin Award in 2004 for research and development efforts made under partnership in Rice Wheat Consortium.
• Launching of National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) in 1998 and National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) in 2005
• As of July, 2006 it has developed a vaccine against bird flu.The vaccine was developed at the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, Bhopal, the only facility in the country to conduct tests for the H5N1 variant of bird flu.It was entrusted with the task of developing a vaccine by the ICAR after the Avian Influenza outbreak in February. The ICAR provided Rs. 8 crore for the purpose.
• 2009: In December 2009, it announced that it was considering a policy to provide open access to its research.
• ICAR scientists were the first in the world to sequence the pigeon pea genome. it was a purely indigenous effort by 31 scientists led by Nagendra Kumar Singh of NRCPB. The first draft of the sequence was published in J. Plant Biochem. Biotechnol