BP Singh

8R.S. Rana***To develop a~d operate the National Herbarium of CropPlants and their Wild Relatives.To organise suitable training programmes at the national,regional and international levels.To develop and implement workplans based onMemoranda of Understanding with InternationalAgriculture Research Centres and bilateral agreementswith other countries.The concept of conservation of PGR in India has undergoneremarkable transformation in recent years. NBPGR has ,nowdeveloped a network of activities based on partnership with otherrelevant institutes and organizations. Its regional stations/ centresrepresent different phytogeographical regions with distinctecological conditions and these are located in the temperate regionat Shimla; arid region at Jodhpur; semi-arid region at Hyderabad,Akola and Amravati; hUmid-tropical region at Thrissur andhumid-subtropical region at Shillong. It also has 10 explorationbase centres; 7 of these located in the existing regional stations and3 located at Cuttack (Orissa), Ranchi (Bihar) and Srinagar (J&K) asindicated in Fig.1.At the main campus, the Bureau is organised into fiveDivisions, namely, Plant Exploration and Collection, GermplasmExchange, Plant Quarantine, Germplasm Evaluation andGermplasm Conservation. A National Facility for plant TissueCulture Repository, funded by the Department of Biotechnology,also operates at NBPGR and complements the Bureau's programmeson genetic conservation of orthodox seed materials. In addition,three All India Coordinated Projects are located at NBPGR,namely, on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, on Arid Legumes andon Under-utilized and Under-exploited plants. With this set upat the Bureau, India has taken a lead among the developing nationsin establishing a well organized and effective plant geneticresources system.Major efforts are now devoted towards further strengtheningthe national plant genetic resources system in the country withNBPGR as the leading organization linked effectively with over 30lCAR institutes, National Research Centres, All India CoordinatedProjects and State Agricultural Universities (Fig.2). These centresare deSignated as· National Active Germplasm Sites for specific