India’s premier farm research and education institute has a full-time director after nearly four years.
It is an institution whose blockbuster varieties account for more than 95% of the country’s Rs 32,800-crore annual basmati rice export revenues, nearly half of its total wheat area, and a quarter of that sown under mustard. Yet, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI, better known as Pusa Institute) has an annual research budget of just over Rs 111 crore and, moreover, was without a regular director for almost four years until late last week.
Scientists at this premier constituent institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are behind the development of improved basmati paddy varieties such as Pusa-1121, Pusa-1509, Pusa Basmati-1, Pusa-1401 and, more recently, Pusa-1718 and Pusa-1637 that are resistant to bacterial blight and blast fungus diseases.
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