The ICAR-Central Potato Research Institute started its journey from Patna (Bihar) where it was established in August 1949 under the guidance of Sir Herbert Steward, the then Agriculture Advisor, Government of India. Dr. S. Ramanujam was the first Director of this newly born institute.
Later on, headquarter of the Institute was shifted to Shimla and this campus retained the status of regional station in 1956. The campus is situated at longitude of 85o 4’ 29” E and latitude of 25o 35’ 32” N at an elevation of 53 m from MSL and is about 10 and 1.5 km away from Patna railway station and airport, respectively.
The station possesses a total of 26.17 hectares land out of which 20 hectares is under cultivation with assured irrigation facility. Infrastructure includes laboratory buildings, administrative building, library cum tissue culture laboratory, staff rooms and potato sheds. Necessary laboratory equipments & farm machineries are also available to undertake various activities. The various activities of the station are being carried out with a team of 40 staff, presently.
It is mainly engaged in addressing the prevailing problems of potato in the North eastern plains region of the country including Eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Jharkhand eastern which contributes about half of potato acreage and production of the country by undertaking relevant research projects in Crop Improvement, Crop Production, Crop Protection, Seed Production and Social Sciences.
Besides, the centre is also producing about 2500 quintal breeder seed of different potato varieties and supplying to various agencies in order to cater the seed demand of the region.
