Administrative apathy: Cradle of India’s Green Revolution languishes without a head

“It reflects the neglect by the authorities of an institution that has contributed so much to our farmers. That this is happening when we are celebrating the golden jubilee of the Green Revolution makes it even more unfortunate,” says Vijay Pal Singh, former programme leader (rice) at IARI and breeder of Pusa-1121, the blockbuster basmati variety that generates around $3 billion in annual export revenues for the country.

From Kalyan Sona and Sonalika in the mid-sixties, IARI scientists went on to develop similarly successful wheat varieties such as HD-2285 (released for commercial cultivation in 1982), HD-2329 (1985), HD-2967 (2011) and HD-3086 (2014). While Kalyan Sona and Sonalika raised the wheat yield potential that many farmers harvested from 10-15 quintals to 45-50 quintals per hectare, these rose further to over 70 quintals with HD-2967 and HD-3086. The last two varieties would cover an estimated 14 million hectares or nearly half of the total area planted to wheat in India this year!

But wheat apart, IARI’s research fields have produced a host of widely-cultivated varieties also in rice (Pusa Basmati-1, Pusa-44, Pusa-1121 and Pusa-1509), mustard (Pusa Bold, Pusa Jaikisan, Pusa Mustard-25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30), chana (BG-256 and BG-362), vegetables (Pusa Ruby tomato, Pusa Purple Long brinjal and Pusa Sawani okra), and mango (Mallika and Amrapali). More recent breakthroughs include Pusa Double Zero Mustard-31 (the first ever ‘canola-grade’ mustard containing low levels of erucic acid and glucosinolates) and Pusa Arhar-16 (a promising early-maturing pigeon-pea that can yield 20 quintals per hectare in just 120 days and is, moreover, amenable to mechanical combine harvesting).

Significantly, all this is from an institution with an annual budget of just over Rs 400 crore, which also covers salaries and other establishment expenses. “There aren’t many research organisations in India that have had such a tangible impact on the ground with so little investment,” claims Singh, whose breeding accomplishments in basmati rice won him the Padma Shri award in 2012. IARI’s bane has been the overbearing control — on everything from administration and appointments to funding, travel and research collaboration approvals — imposed by ministers, bureaucrats and scientist-administrators sitting in Krishi Bhawan. Such direct involvement from the Agriculture Ministry may not have mattered during the Green Revolution period, when the person at the helm, Chidambaram Subramaniam, was somebody who knew the subject well and, equally important, had a direct line with the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.

“We were living ship-to-mouth those days and everybody recognised the importance of investing in agricultural research. A lot of attention was, therefore, paid to institutions such as IARI and it continued even in the decades that followed. No wonder, we had such illustrious directors, be it B P Pal, M S Swaminathan, A B Joshi, H K Jain and S K Sinha or R B Singh and S Nagarajan,” notes Singh.

According to him, things have changed in the last few years, when agriculture itself has ceased to be a priority amongst policymakers and “we think we have become self-sufficient”. That has bred not just complacency, but even negligence, manifested in India’s premier national institute for agricultural research and education not having a full-time director. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute currently has Jeet Singh Sandhu, deputy director-general (crop science) of ICAR, holding additional charge as its director. Prior to him, the officiating director was Ravinder Kaur, an agricultural physicist who heads IARI’s water technology centre.

“The director of IARI should be someone with a good understanding of soil and water, besides biochemistry, genetics and breeding, plant pathology and entomology. I hope the government make the right choice and it is done soon. The present situation is sending a negative message to the younger generation of scientists,” adds Singh.

Many eminent farm scientists, both past and serving, The Indian Express spoke to felt that the time had come to insulate both IARI and its parent organisation ICAR from political/bureaucratic interference by bringing them under the direct charge of the Prime Minister. “This is the case with the Indian Space Research Organisation, Department of Atomic Energy, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. Transferring administrative authority from Krishi Bhawan to the Prime Minister’s office will make ICAR/IARI less vulnerable to ministerial whims and day-to-day interference. Moreover, it will help raise the profile of agricultural research to the level of space and atomic energy, while protecting the autonomy of institutions like IARI,” they point out.