About Crri
The out break of devastating epiphytotic brown spot disease of rice (Helminthosporium spp) in 1942 in the then Bengal Province (the areas of which are now in the state of West Bengal in India and Bangladesh resulted in a serious shortage of rice. Added to this, the failure of the civil administration to cope with such a disastrous situation culminated in what was called the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. With this background, the Central Government, in the year 1944, decided to intensify research on all aspect of rice crop. In 1945, the Government of India decided to establish a central Institute for rice research. As a result, the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) was setup on 23 April 1946 at Bidhyadharpur, Cuttack, Odisha with an experimental farm land of 60 hectares provided by Government of Orissa. Dr. K. Ramiah, an eminent rice breeder, as its founder Director. Subsequently, in 1966, the administrative control of the institute was transferred to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
The CRRI is one of the Institutes of the ICAR under the Division of Crop Sciences. The Institute has two research stations- Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station (CRURRS), Hazaribagh, in Jharkhand, and the Regional Rainfed Lowland Rice Research Station (RRLRRS), Gerua, in Assam. These research stations were established to tackle the problems of rainfed uplands, and flood prone rainfed lowlands, respectively.
Two Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) also function under the CRRI and guided by the DDG (Agril. Extension). These KVKs are located at Santhapur, Cuttack and Jainagar, Koderma.