COVER STORY

WHAT WE SPEND in ` crore

STILL NOT ENOUGH % of agri GDP spent in 2010 2010-11 7,472
BUDGETS 2009-10

C H I N A
6,304

I N D I A

BRAZIL
SPENDING ON 2008-09 5,456
AGRICULTURAL
RESEARCH 0.59
(0.34 in 2000)
1.0
(0.40 in 2000)
2.8
(1.81 in 2000)
2007-08 4,472
2006-07 3,982
ON Expenditure on research
NNUA L SPENDINGWAS and development
CHINA’S AURE R&D IN 2008 ULL-
AGRICULTN. IT HAD 43,000 F EAR
$4 BILLIO EARCHERS THAT Y
TIME RES

PHOTOGRAPHS: CHINKY SHUKLA

26 Down To Earth • October 16-31, 2013

 ICAR’S OUTLAY ON R&D in ` crore
12,69,888
2013-14 3,415
10,79,365 2012-13 3,220
9,43,204 2011-12 2,850 Source: Indian Council
2010-11 2,522 of Agricultural
8,36,518 Research (ICAR)
Source 2009-10 1,760
Lok Sabha reply on
7,22,984 18.12.2012

Agriculture GDP

SCIENCE
UNDER
SIEGE
Agricultural science has ossified in India.
Despite a vast network of public research
institutions and agriculture universities
across the country, nothing of significance
has emerged from this system to galvanise
farming in recent decades, barring perhaps
new strains of basmati rice. Weak basic
research, excessive centralisation and
control of the national research system by
the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
are the root cause for this state of affairs but
underpinning it all are harmful government
policies rooted in ensuring food security.
Caught in these bureaucratic rigidities are
the science and scientists. Lax standards,
poor monitoring and unpunished scientific
fraud have destroyed ambitious research
projects and shaken the morale of the
public research system, find
Latha Jishnu and Jyotika Sood

October 16-31, 2013 • Down To Earth 27

COVER STORY
1960 Utta
r Pradesh
Agricultu
ral Univers
PERIAL 1936 ARI renamed Imperial Pantnaga ity,
FROM IMINGS TO Agricultural Research Institute (1911) Later rena
r

BEGINN ERTAIN
med GB P
Agricultu an
Moves to Delhi following earthquake. ral Univers t
AN UNC Becomes Indian Agricultural Research first of 56
SAUs to c
ity, it is
FUTURE Institute (IARI) in 1948 ome up

1904 Agricultural
Research Institute (ARI)
Seedling of agriculture
science planted at Pusa,
Bihar. With grant of
£30,000 from American
philanthropist Henry
Phipps
1929 Imperial Council of 1958 IARI is made a 1966 ICAR reorganised
Agricultural Research deemed university Huge jump in funding;
Set up as a result of report Becomes leading focus on food security
of Royal Commission on institute for research
Agriculture. Becomes
Indian Council of
Agricultural Research post
Independence

S
ubbanna Ayyappan has recently returned from a
trip to one of the farthest outposts of his vast
empire. He flew to Guwahati, from there drove to
Tezpur and then to Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh,
where the National Research Centre on Yak is
located. The last lap was a tortuous climb to Nyuk-
madung at an altitude of 2,750 metres where the Dirang cen-
tre has its yak farm. Ayyappan, director general of the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), confesses he was “a
little out of breath” during the last stretch of the journey.
The Dirang centre is engaged in making sure the yak num-
bers do not decline and it is illustrative of ICAR’s mandate.
Practically every farm animal, from the mithun, the unique
bovine species of the Northeast, to the pig has been accorded
its own research centre or a project directorate, like every crop
from litchi to sorghum. It all adds up to 98 institutes of one
kind or the other, institutes that have been set up or were sub-
sumed by ICAR after it was given control over all
research institutes under the Ministry of
Agriculture in 1966. As a result, ICAR boasts
one of the largest national agricultural sys-
tems in the world, if not the largest. As
the apex organisation for coordinating
education and managing research and its application in agri-
culture, agro-forestry, animal husbandry, fisheries and allied
sciences, the council has an exhaustive and curious collection
of institutes and project directorates dedicated to the study of
such things as foot-and-mouth disease and weed science.
In addition to 95 research institutes, ICAR funds and over-
sees some 56 state agricultural universities (SAUs), apart from
four deemed universities and one Central Agricultural Univ-
ersity for the north-eastern region. Together these constitute
the national agriculture research system or NARS. It is a huge
enterprise involving some 24,000 scientists, of whom close to
4,800 are with ICAR institutes and directorates; the rest are with
the universities. It is a research establishment that dwarfs the
number of laboratories its counterpart in industrial research,
the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, boasts.
What has all this contributed to India’s agriculture? The
typical response of the ICAR top brass is to reel off a long list of
successes that focuses on the improved crop varieties that have
led to greater food security in the country, the jump in pro-
duction of vegetables, eggs and milk. Rice and wheat, pre-
dictably, are the starred items in this report card, with the Pusa
Basmati varieties topping the list. Critics tend to dismiss this as
“repetitive and ritualistic applied research” but the ICAR chief

INDICATIVE COST OF AN ICAR SCIENTIST

BUDGET OUTLAY PER RESEARCH RATIO OF BUDGET OUTLAY
SCIENTIST (` LAKH) PAPERS* TO RESEARCH PAPER
14.90
26.80 26.52
42.91
41.78
13.84
NUMBER OF SCIENTISTS
REPORTED
2000-01 3,166
2007-08 3,136
0.92
1.01
0.97

2009-10 3,709
*This is a total and does not indicate the H-index list of most cited
research papers
Source: Compiled from reports of ICAR Institutes
28 Down To Earth • October 16-31, 2013
 COVER STORY

1973 Agricultural Scientists 1998 National Agriculture 2011 AgrInnovate India

Recruitment Board Separate Technology Programme Set up with Rs 100 crore, the company
Agriculture Research Service World Bank injects funds to commercialises ICAR technologies by
(ARS) for farm scientists galvanise research protecting intellectual property rights

2005 National 2013 CRPs, ARYA, Farmer First

1974 ICAR becomes 1974 Krishi Vigyan Agricultural Innovation ICAR’s new programmes: CRPs aim to
government Kendra (KVK),
Project network research all over the
department Puducherry
Second World Bank fund country; ARYA is to retain rural
Consolidation of Network of
to modernise Indian youth in farming; Farmer First aims
scientific and extension services
agriculture to enrich farmer-scientist interface
bureaucratic now totals 634
authority

insists the increase in food production

from 50 million tonnes in 1950 to the cur-
rent 259 million tonnes has to be seen as
the “most beneficial contribution of R&D
not just in the form of improved food
security but in total factor productivity”.
The fact of the matter is that ICAR has IF ICAR WAS NOT
no choice in this matter. “Cereals are a PRO-SCIENCE,
high-volume, low-value commodity. We PRO-SKILL, 32
have been mandated with researching SCIENTISTS
these and we are doing it. They are the FROM ABROAD
basics for food security in the country,” WOULDN’T HAVE
explains Ayyappan. In sum, development JOINED ICAR
of crop varieties (open pollinated seed
S Ayyappan
that can be reused) is left to the public
DG, ICAR
research system, while private companies
focus on hybrids (see charts on p31),
which is where the money is to be made
since hybrids have to be bought afresh for each sowing.
Ayyappan is from the Agriculture Research Service, a spe-
cial cadre of scientists created in 1973, and has been with ICAR
for close to 35 years. This true blue product of NARS has made
history of sorts by becoming the first non-crop scientist—he is
a fisheries expert—to head this sprawling network. That is
something he takes pride in, but his tenure has come at a time
when agricultural science in the country is battling serious
problems of relevance and integrity.
The director general is the first to admit that the current
challenges to Indian farming are tremendous, almost unprece-
dented. Soil degradation and fatigue have been plateauing
yields in major crops since the 1990s, and looming over all this
are the hazards of climate change, to which Indian farming is
particularly susceptible. “The weakness of the system is that it
is not prepared for the coming challenges and needs time to
build its responses,” he admits candidly. “There will always be
some unexpected disaster from biotic and abiotic stresses.”
Worse, for Ayyappan, have been the unethical practices of
some leading scientists. A series of research scandals that had
been gestating for long blew up in his face just as he took office foray into GM crop research appears to have gone nowhere.
WE GIVE CHARGE TO A
SCIENTIST BUT DO NOT
GIVE HIM POWERS. AS A
RESULT IN INDIA YOU
WASTE ENERGY ON PRO-
TOCOLS AND PERMISSIONS
AND NOT ON RESEARCH
S K Datta
Deputy DG, crop sciences, ICAR
in January 2010, leaving him to look for ways to salvage the
reputation and credibility of the system that had taken a knock
globally. The first of these unsavoury events involved the pres-
tigious National Research Centre for Plant Biotechnology,
along with a leading academic institution, the University of
Agricultural Sciences-Dharwad, and top-ranking scientists of
ICAR (see ‘Untangling India’s Bt cotton fraud’, February 1-15,
2012; ‘Cleaning the cotton stain’, February 16-29, 2012; ‘ICAR’s
shoddy science’, January 1-15, 2013, Down To Earth)
That episode involving research of over 10 years to create a
public sector Bt or genetically modified (GM) cotton was sup-
posed to herald India’s entry into the hi-tech league. But soon
after its commercial release in 2009 there was gloom in the sci-
entific establishment. India’s “completely indigenous Bt vari-
ety”, the Bikaneri Narma (BN Bt), failed and was withdrawn
after one season. In fact, it turned out no gene, as claimed, had
been developed by the public research project, launched under
the World Bank-funded National Agricultural Technology
Project (NATP) that pumped $200 million into NARS along with
a grant of $50 million from the Indian government. India’s

October 16-31, 2013 • Down To Earth 29

COVER STORY

The tragedy is that the research bungling, to put a kinder

inference on this discreditable episode, was investigated only
after unseemly details about the cotton project were made
public by some rival scientists who had filed right to informa-
tion (RTI) petitions on the project and leaked the details to the
media. That no action has been taken more than one-and-a-
half years after the fraud came to light has resulted in a deep
sense of betrayal and a deepening sense of cynicism among
young scientists (see ‘Lies, exposes and cover-ups’, p36).
But the scandals are just part of the problem. Many see
NARS as a sclerotic organisation incapable of undertaking the
research challenges before the country. A reason for this can
be found in the way ICAR functions. The director general func-
tions concurrently as secretary to the Department of Agricul-
ture Research and Education of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The post was created in 1974, ostensibly to smooth the inter-
face of the autonomous ICAR with the policy-makers in Delhi’s
Krishi Bhavan, ministry headquarters. But this has created an
anomalous situation for ICAR, which although set up as a reg-
istered society functions as an adjunct of the government.
Lack of original thinking and encouragement for out-of-
the-box ideas for problem solving is an underlying cause of
the rot in agri-science. “Almost all institutions build their
research programmes on previous routine projects based on
inputs from scientists and there are hardly any attempts to
push towards pathbreaking science,” points out the director
of a national crop research centre. He believes lack of “think-
dures, complete absence of accountability, stifling centralisa-
tank” to prioritise “immediate national challenges” and envis-
tion, lack of a performance-based incentive system and moni-
age “long-term research investment” at the national level is a
toring and evaluation processes, are some examples.”
major reason agri-science is going nowhere. Currently, priori-
This is why scientist G V Ramanjaneyulu, who worked
with ICAR from 1996 to 2003, quit the organisation to do
tisation is carried out at the institutional level within the allo-
something more meaningful. Ramanjaneyulu was working
cated budget, which has become a self-defeating exercise.
with the Directorate of Oilseeds in Hyderabad at a time of
Another is the “wasting of scientific talent by scattering many
increasing reports of suicides by farmers. He says that’s when
young talented scientists across less important institutes
which cannot harness their potential.” he took the decision to leave a well paying job where no ques-
The problems that beset NARS were summed up best bytions were asked about non-performance. “I didn’t find much
Dayanatha Jha, a scholar who wrote on the problems of R&D
scope to work as the system was caught up in a technology-
in agricultural research more than a decade ago. “Any scientist
driven framework. There was also lot of inbreeding depres-
in ICAR will endorse that bureaucracy and associated evils are
sion within the system as it was closed to learning anything
the root cause of inefficiency. Obstructive rules and proce-
from what was happening on the ground.”
Ramanjaneyulu took the plunge and set
up the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in
Hyderabad which works with farmers.
Interestingly, the issue of farmers’ suicides,
which has now crossed a mind-numbing figure
of 285,000, has never figured in any discussion
in ICAR nor in any of the SAUs. Nor have they
researched the agro-ecological approaches tried
by farmers who are tired of the unsustainable
nature of the heavily input-driven model of
OUR RESEARCH RESEARCH CAN BE farming promoted by NARS, laments the scien-
SHOULD BE FOR SUCCESS OR FAILURE. tist. The fact is that none of these models, even
DEVELOPMENT, AND EVERYBODY NEEDS TO the non-pesticide management method that has
spread across Andhra Pradesh, has been studied
NOT FOR MERE UNDERSTAND THIS. IT IS in detail by ICAR, although its own assessment
RESEARCH. NOT NECESSARY THAT reports show that such models bring in ecologi-
OUR AIM SHOULD 1+1=2, IT CAN BE 11 cal and economic benefit to farmers. “Now sev-
R4D AND NOT R&D OR 0 eral of us working in and outside NARS are form-
R B Singh H S Gupta ing a professional society to publish a peer
President, NAAS Director, IARI reviewed journal on agro-ecology,” he says.

30 Down To Earth • October 16-31, 2013

 RID SEED
AND THE HEYLBONGS TO …
MARKET B
Share of
No. of seed private sector
varieties in hybrid
Private Public
sector market
sector
25 88.5%
193
Cotton 28 78.6%
103
Maize 19 54.8%
23
Paddy 13 86.3%
82
Pearl millet 13 80.3%
53
Sorghum 2 33.3%
1
Pigeon pea 16 75.0%
48
Sunflower

Private sector accounts for 80 per cent

turnover in seed
Almost a third of these companies have a
global technology/financial partner
Private seed companies are spending
10-12 per cent of their turnover on R&D
R&D budget of medium-sized companies is
growing at 20 per cent annually. It has 100 per
cent of the vegetable seed market for chilli,
tomato, watermelon, gourds, brinjal and okra
Source: R S Paroda and National Seed Association of India (NSAI)

Is there growing disillusionment with agricultural sci-

19,390

ence promoted by NARS? Rajeswari Raina, economist and LONG GRAINS OF SUCCESS
principal scientist with the National Institute of Science,
Technology and Development Studies (Nistads), thinks so.
Raina, who has closely tracked agricultural science in India 3, INDIA
and written extensively on it, says, “The agri-research system IN 2012-1 D BASMATI
refuses to respond to the fact that the contribution of agri- EXPORTE TH
culture to the national GDP has been declining steadily. It is RICE WOR3 CRORE
15.8 per cent and is expected to slide to 8.5 per cent by 2015.” `19,390.5
TENSIONS WITH STATE SLOW CRAWL ON
There are emerging tensions between the research system WHEAT VARIETIES
and government. The Eleventh Five Year Plan had sought a Year Variety Productivity
(surprising) change in the direction and research content of (tonne/hectare)
10,582

NARS to make a dent in poverty, hunger, malnutrition and 1966 S 227 3.4
the environment: “Thus far, research has tended to focus 1975 WL 711 4.7
mostly on increasing the yield potential by more intensive 1985 HD 2329 4.7
use of water and biochemical inputs. Far too little attention 1995 PBW 343 4.9
has been given to the long-term environmental impact or on 2011 DPW 621-50 5.2
Basmati rice export in ` crore

methods and practices for the efficient use of these inputs for
sustainable agriculture. These features are widely known but
efforts to correct them have not been adequate; at any rate INDIA’S W
they have not made much of a difference.” IS 2.9 TON HEAT PRODUCTIV
This, says an old-time scientist, is “a complete turn- CHINA’S IS NES/HECTARE AN ITY
around by the state”, which had itself encouraged such
4.8 D
3,043

research and promoted policies that have focused almost

entirely on increasing cereal production (rice and wheat, in
2,148

particular) and provided subsidies that have degraded the

850

environment to an alarming degree.

1990-91 276

And the twelfth plan approach paper is even more critical.

It says: “Public sector technology generation often fails to take
2012-13
2010-11
2005-06
2000-01
1995-96

into account farmers’ needs, perceptions and location specific

conditions for each crop, leading to significant gaps between
the varieties released by public sector institutions and the
Source: ICAR and FAO

October 16-31, 2013 • Down To Earth 31

COVER STORY

number of varieties actually used by

the farmers. Private sector research and
the seed industry often focus on those
crops and varieties which have ade-
quate scale (massive markets) and
scope (repeated sales). As a result,
some crops/crop groups get little AGRICULTURE SCIENCE IS THERE WAS A LOT
research attention. This phenomenon MARKED BY REPETITIVE OF INBREEDING
is most visible in predominantly rain- AND RITUALISTIC RESEARCH DEPRESSION WITHIN
fed crops like pulses and some oilseeds, NOT RELEVANT TO THE THE SYSTEM AS IT
which are in crying need for a techno- ACUTE AGRARIAN WAS CLOSED TO
logical breakthrough.” The irony, PROBLEMS IN INDIA. LEARNING ANYTHING
though, is that the Centre is again per- THERE IS NO SCIENCE, JUST FROM WHAT WAS
petuating the mistakes of the Green A BLIND ADAPTATION OF HAPPENING ON THE
Revolution by transplanting the same WESTERN TECHNOLOGY GROUND
policies in the eastern region. Rajeswari Raina G V Ramanjaneyulu
Increasing imports of cooking oils
Principal scientist, Nistads Scientist, formerly with ICAR
and pulses reflect a certain failure ev-
en in the traditional lines of research
followed by NARS. H S Gupta, director of IARI, explains, “The for the current year, there is huge disappointment with the
Green Revolution focused on cereals and since there was funds allocated by the government for the twelfth plan.
already a way forward in wheat and rice with dwarfing gene we “Everybody knows that our budget is very small,” says
progressed very fast. Pulses did not enjoy that kind of research Swapan Kumar Datta, deputy director general, crop sciences,
intensity and were also relegated to marginal lands.” ICAR. “In the Twelfth Five Year Plan we demanded ` 50,000
How NARS will meet the coming challenges is a tough ques- crore but got only `25,000 crore. That is `25,000 for five years
tion. Years of repetitive research and a fossilised syllabus in for close to 100 institutions and 56 agri-universities!” Datta,
SAUs have cramped the system’s ability to be nimble. One crip- unlike Ayyappan, is a lateral recruit. He joined ICAR in 2009
pling deficiency is shortage of scientists and a marked lack of after working for 20 years in institutes in Europe, and he
specialisation in critical disciplines such as genomics. The chafes at the bureaucratic controls.
sanctioned strength for scientists is 6,470; as of last year 4,745 Shortage of funds is a gnawing issue for the plant biotech-
posts had been filled. According to ICAR sources, at any given nologist. “If I have to develop a big platform on genomics I
time 30 per cent of the posts remain vacant. would need `10,000 crore. That is big money. I need to devel-
op that platform today but the money is not available.”
PAUCITY OF FUNDS The head of crop sciences division is a powerful satrap
But above all is the question of funds. While ICAR’s R&D bud- with 12 national institutes, nine project directorates, three
get has increased from `1,760 crore in 2009-10 to `3,415 crore bureaus and two national research centres under his control.
In addition, 27 all-India coordinated research projects and
IARI, the premier agriculture research institute in Delhi India-wide network projects are under his supervision, and in
ICAR he is viewed as the man to watch. But as yet he has done
little to shake up the system, although he is known to have said
openly that “science can’t be done the way we are working”.
How this small pie is shared among the many research
institutes is also a sore point. The Dirang centre, for one, gets
`6 crore per year for the current plan period, not different
from what research centres on major crops receive. Likewise,
there is little to show that funding is based on the importance
of a crop to the farming community. Take what cotton
research received in the past 12 years. The plan fund—the allo-
cation for research (contingencies, works, renovation, equip-
ment)—was about `25 crore. External funding from the
department of biotechnology, the World Bank’s NATP and its
newer avatar National Agriculture Innovation Project (NAIP),
added another `6-7 crore. This has given rise to resentment
among scientists who question the rationale for allocations.
Criteria such as economic importance of the crop, employ-
ment potential and emerging challenges should determine
budget allocation. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
India’s GM cotton revolution has bypassed the public sec-
tor, while private companies are raking in huge profits as cot-
ton farmers take almost entirely to the GM hybrids developed

32 Down To Earth • October 16-31, 2013

 COVER STORY

INTERVIEW

LINKAGE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND

PUBLIC POLICY HAS WEAKENED
M S Swaminathan, popularly known as the father of India’s Green Revolution, has been associated with
national agricultural research system (NARS) since 1947 when he was a student at the Indian
Agricultural Research Institute (IARI). After getting PhD from Cambridge University, he joined IARI, of
which he became director, and then director general of ICAR. A believer in the need to articulate clear,
goal-oriented research, Swaminathan tells Latha Jishnu what has changed since his time. Excerpts

Can you tell us how research priorities
have changed?
Research is always dynamic and, there-
fore, priorities will change over time. In
the 1950s and ’60s, our major goal was
improving crop productivity. Currently,
the emphasis should be on improving
the income of farmers as well as the
environmental sustainability of agro-
nomic technologies. I see two changes:
in the linkage between science and
public policy, which was very close, and
in the strong relation between the scientist and farmers,
where the former would go to the farmer’s field and
demonstrate the technology.
How did this linkage become weaker?
One reason is that scientists don’t express their views.
Today the GM debate is going on and you hardly find sci-
entists from ICAR, the top most institute, talking about GM
science. They should express their views. In 2004, I suggest-
ed an All India Coordinated Research Project on biosafe-
ty. Today there are over 1,000 (GM cotton) hybrids and
farmers are confused. ICAR should have forced all compa-
nies to test under bio-safety precautions.
Is it because scientists are scared?
Yes, it is about being a government servant. In our time
our strength was communication with the media. When
the whole world was saying ‘these guys are going to fail
in Green Revolution’, Indian media was saying the oppo-
site because I got them to the field.
How the research environment changed?
Scientists today are better paid and laboratories are bet-
ter equipped. A sense of complacency has
set in; there is no longer the pressure to
do something urgently to improve the
wellbeing of farm families.
Has the quality of scientific manpower
changed significantly since your time?
The quality of scientific manpower varies
widely from institution to institution. Most
of the agricultural universities have
become highly inbred. Appointments to
senior positions are also made on the basis
of political influence. There is more emphasis on bricks
than brains. Achievements are measured by the number of
buildings built and money spent and not by the improve-
ment in the wellbeing of farm and fisher families.
There is a general perception that ICAR’s role and
research has declined. Do you agree?
ICAR has not declined in terms of money but there is a
need to strengthen national research system and not
hand over our responsibility to international institutions.
There must be well-defined milestones. When I was in
IARI we had small groups and we had a very clear idea
about what has to be done. There were clear goals, five-
year plans and we got results.
The Chinese appear to have done much better than us.
The Chinese have done a much better job because they
are able to generate team-based and focused work. They
also have a strong bond between scientists and farmers.
In a small way such bonds were developed during the
Cultural Revolution, but have now become organic and
ingrained in the system. This is why China could spread
technologies like hybrid rice very fast.

by private Indian companies and multi-
nationals. US technology provider Mo-
nsanto has harvested a reported `2,000
crore in royalty rates from these firms.
“Cotton,” says an agriculture min-
istry official, “is a good example of what
is happening in agriculture science.
Pitted against companies with a
turnover of `4,000 crore, our research
has faltered and fallen by the wayside.”
If agriculture fails nothing will suc-
ceed, warns the National Academy of
Agricultural Sciences’ (NAAS’) president
R B Singh who has been campaigning for
an overhaul of the research system. ICAR,
he says, needs to be transformed to
ensure integration of activities and sub-
systems. “Accountability is the need of
the time. There was seriousness of pur-
pose in our time. Scientific temper was
high in those early days when we were
taking the best of science to agriculture.”
In short, the siege mentality has
to end.

October 16-31, 2013 • Down To Earth 33

COVER STORY

n the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) a lot deputy director general (crop sciences) of ICAR. Ananda

I of research is just hearsay. Some of it is imaginary. In some

cases very little evidence remains of “significant break-
throughs” that scientists claim to have made. Sometimes
scientists leave the organisations, do not hand over the
material and no questions are ever asked. At other times,
research centres manage to lose the research material. It is all
very lax and conveniently so.
Some years ago, S K Raina made waves when he was
professor at the National Research Centre on Plant Biotech-
nology (NRCPB). This premier research facility of the Indian
Agricultural Research Institute at the Pusa complex in Delhi
became the first in the country “to develop an efficient genetic
transformation system for elite Indica rice cultivars”. His group
was also the first to conduct contained field trials of transgenic
Bt Rice in 1999, according to his profile on the Indian National
Science Academy website. In 2004, Raina sought voluntary
retirement from NRCPB to join a private seed company, Nath
Group at Aurangabad, that offers Bt cotton technology.
Kumar complained that Bansal’s failure to hand over the pro-
ject files and provide genes, clones, sequences, etc had caused
problems while reporting to promoters of the three externally
funded projects: the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of
the Ministry of Science and Technology, the World Bank’s
National Agriculture Innovation Project and the Network
Project on Transgenic Crops.
Bansal’s portfolio of research breakthroughs is impressive.
Listed by him are transgenic tomato developed with improved
tolerance to drought and cold stress; transgenic mustard;
transgenic wheat; transgenic tomato with delayed fruit
ripening; transgenic mustard with Zat12 and Dhsp genes and
transgenic tomato with improved texture. However, there is
no sign of these in the research pipeline and Bansal has not
responded to Down To Earth (DTE) queries on the current sta-
tus of the projects.
There are also the contretemps over the scientist’s applica-
tion for a patent for his breakthrough on plastid transforma-
tion in brinjal. In December 2012, ICAR began a formal investi-
gation of charges that Bansal had made false claim about a
patent application for the transgenic brinjal having been filed

LIES,
in 2007. Based on this and two other patent claims, Bansal was
awarded ICAR’s top prize, the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award for
2007-2008. However, investigations showed that although two
patent applications had, indeed, been filed, no application

EXPOSÉS relating to the transgenic brinjal patent had been

made till July 16, 2009, when he was given the
award. ICAR director general S Ayyappan told

COVER-UPs
DIRT IS PILING UP AS RIVALRIES
DTE inquiries are still under way.
Ironically, Ananda Kumar’s involvement in
the GM cotton fraud was investigated by a com-
mittee but no action has been taken on its report.
“We are still waiting for responses from the parties,”
BETWEEN SCIENTISTS LEAD TO says Ayyappan. All of this has left a trail of unanswered
TIT-FOR-TAT EXPOSÉS OF questions—and deepening cynicism among younger scien-
RESEARCH FRAUDS tists about the lack of accountability in the system.
ICAR systems, unlike those in CSIR (Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research) and DBT, leave a lot to be desired. For one,

If you ask NRCPB

about what happened to
the Bt rice they have no answer.
Other curious instances of scien-
tific breakthroughs also involve the
NRCPB , which appears to be an
extremely lax organisation. In
October 2011 when principal scien-
tist K C Bansal left the centre to
become director of India’s gene bank, he
appears to have forgotten to hand over
the research materials he had been
working on: seed of GM mustard,
slow ripening tomato and chloro-
plast transformed mustard.
The then project director of
NRCPB P Ananda Kumar wrote
several letters to Bansal about the
missing material and finally to
his boss Swapan Kumar Datta, AJIT BAJAJ / CSE

36 Down To Earth • October 16-31, 2013


its research institutes do not maintain the laboratory file.
Instead, it swears by the Research Project File (RPF). The differ-
ence between the two is this: while the RPF is a dossier on a pro-
ject, it does not have the detailed day-to-day notings of what
transpires in the laboratory or field as the lab file does. “We were
shocked to learn about this omission in 2009,” says Rajeswari
Raina, principal scientist with the National Institute of Science,
Technology and Development Studies. She was part of the team
put together by the Knowledge Commission of India to suggest
measures to tackle the crisis in agriculture research.
In a letter sent to the prime minister and the agriculture
minister, commission chairperson Sam Pitroda had made a
pointed reference to the lab file while listing steps to improve
the organisation of agricultural research. “The Research
Project File (RPF) system in ICAR institutes has fossilised and
does not assist the conduct or management of relevant
research. The lab/project file must be made mandatory in SAUs
(state agriculture universities) and ICAR institutes and com-
puterised on a priority basis, preferably by 2009-2010. This
will enable the creation of a research database within the
organisation and at the national level,” he had said. Based on
this lab/project file system, there should be an annual scientif-
ic audit of each programme/project.
COVER STORY
The lab file is yet to be made mandatory and the old ways
of keeping an RPF continue in ICAR. Says one cynical young sci-
entist who has worked as an assistant on a transgenic project:
“I have found senior scientist manipulating inconvenient data
on field trials. If you keep a lab file which has to be signed
every day this kind of manipulation is not possible.” However,
increasingly, scientists who wish to be published in reputed
journals abroad find that such detailed data records have to be
provided before research papers are accepted.
Plagiarism is the other hallmark of Indian science.
Sometimes entire papers have been reproduced, at other
times, the crucial parts. These instances, exposed usually by
fellow scientists, are dealt with in ad-hoc fashion. Then there
are retractions. A recent change in a vector map was made
almost 12 years after the paper was published and could undo
the original thesis.
Cases of malfeasance are increasingly coming to light
thanks to rivalries and jealousies within the scientific commu-
nity. Claims which reek of dishonesty or outright fraud are
being verified through a spate of right to information (RTI)
applications. As one scientist confided to DTE: “The system
prefers to turn a blind eye to such instances for several reasons.
For one, it is embarrassing to have a senior colleague exposed
and for another, the processes are so slow and convoluted that
the top brass appears to think that it is pointless. But RTIs allow
you to get information and force these cases into the open.”
One suggestion for weeding out bogus claims on research
comes from a project director who has had a long experi-
ence of handling young teams. Since awards, incentives
and career promotions are given to scientists based
on applications, he suggests a change of approach.
“It is ambitious scientists who apply for these
awards and manage to get them. The genuine
ones are rarely recognised. To overcome this, the
top management of different divisions should
identify outstanding scientists for awards or addi-
tional increments and promotions without them
having to ask.” Assessment could be based on
impact of the outstanding research publications,
varieties released, production strategies, patents
granted, technologies commercialised and novel
methods. “This can set up a system that moti-
vates excellence,” the project director says.
BEST PAID SCIENTIST
Others, however, are sceptical whether it
would work given the cushy terms of the
Agriculture Research Service (ARS) which put
these scientists on a higher footing. Modelled on
the University Grants Commission scales, agri-
culture scientists get time-bound promotions irre-
spective of vacancies or performance and retire only
at 62. All other scientists are on a government scale and
as a result, there’s a scramble by those working in laborato-
ries of the science and technology department to get into ARS.
Says the director of a research institute: “It is a secure job
with great pay. In nine years ARS recruits become senior
scientists and in 15 years principal scientists. After this, there is
nothing to stop them from just sitting pretty. Increments will
continue regularly.”
October 16-31, 2013 • Down To Earth 37
COVER STORY
Whimsical moves
OF the many odd decisions taken by ICAR chiefs that
reveal the unscientific tendencies of its bosses one relates
to the National Bureau of Agriculturally Important
Microorganisms (NBAIM). It is a story that senior scientists
recount with sardonic humour.
NBAIM was set up in 2001 at an estimated cost of `5.33
crore by the Department of Agricultural Research and
Education (DARE) under the Ministry of Agriculture in the
Ninth Five Year Plan. The basic goal of the bureau is to
promote and coordinate systematic research on microor-
ganisms that would improve agricultur-
al productivity.
It started functioning on the old
premises of the National Bureau of
Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in the
Pusa complex, Delhi, and was all set to
expand its infrastructure when the
then director general of ICAR decided
to shift it to a location that its staff had
a tough time locating on the map: Mau
Nath Bhanjan in Uttar Pradesh. It
appears that the then DG was from
those parts. Accordingly, in 2004,
NBAIM was relocated in a building
vacated by the National Institute of Sugarcane and Sugar
Technology (NISST) at Kushmaur village, which is 12 km
from the town and devoid of public transport. The only
way to reach NBAIM is through hired taxis. Mau Nath
Bhanjan itself is about 120 km from Varanasi.
In this remote fastness two dozen scientists and tech-
nical staff have put together a microbial collection that
the Biodiversity Authority of India recognises as a nation-
Many scientists complain that corruption is rampant in
the system and that many heads of laboratories are facing vig-
ilance investigations. But this is a problem that cuts both ways.
Sometimes, scientists are penalised on seemingly flimsy
grounds, such as travelling abroad without the necessary
permissions.
Datta of ICAR has another take on this. He says, “Our trust
system is weak.” There is too much paper work and too many
bureaucratic processes, says the scientist who worked
abroad for 20 years. “In Switzerland, I would just email my
boss and get his go-ahead to go on a trip. That allows you to
spend all your time on research and work. Here scientists
spend so much time getting clearances and orders from differ-
ent ministries.”
He rues the absence of a robust system that allows scien-
tists to work according to strict principles and regulations. In
Switzerland, for example, everybody retires at 60 and nobody
gets extension. But in India, even in their 70s scientists hold on
to office irrespective of their physical fitness, competence and
38 Down To Earth • October 16-31, 2013
al repository. NBAIM’s mandate is to act as “the nodal
institute at national level for acquisition and manage-
ment of indigenous and exotic microbial genetic
resources for food and agriculture, and to carry out relat-
ed research and human resource development, for sus-
tainable growth of agriculture”.
The location would not have mattered too much but
for one crucial factor. There is no power in this particular
backwoods of Uttar Pradesh. The bureau requires high
quality power to maintain its culture collection: at minus
80 degrees centigrade for long-term
preservation, and at 4 degrees C for
short-term storage. So NBAIM runs on
huge generators to conserve its rare
collection and its power bill is whop-
ping. Scientists here say that the use of
generators would in all probability be
ruining much of the equipment at the
repository which preserves and con-
serves the microbial diversity of the
country. The collection has a wide
diversity of fungi, including more than
700 species belonging to 250 genera
apart from bacterial collection of more
than 100 species belonging to 35 genera.
The irony is that given the operational constraints,
NBAIM may be forced to return to Delhi. In September
last year, a regional meeting of ICAR held in Patna decid-
ed to send a duplicate set of the microbial cultures to be
maintained at NBPGR so that collection remained safe.
Right now there is a vigilance inquiry over corruption
charges at the bureau.
capability. “This flexibility could make you corrupt. Why
should we encourage this?” Datta asks.
But there are other kinds of corruption, the most common
stems from tendering for equipment. This stems from the way
funds are released in ICAR. Says a scientist who has observed
the system for a couple of decades: “The bulk of funds are
spent in February-March, the fag end of the financial year, so
open tenders are called for urgently and a purchase committee
is set up. Three quotations are sought not necessarily from dif-
ferent suppliers; it could be from just one.”
According to him it is a lovely racket since most of it is on
technical material and there is no one to question it. On the
other hand, scientists complain that the system is fixed and
one is forced to accept the lowest quotation no matter how
inferior the quality of equipment and how seriously it could
impair research. “We worry all the time about vigilance
inquiries, RTI queries and departmental probes,” says Datta.
Little wonder that so little science gets done in the
system. ■