Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra inaugurated and chaired the Review cum Interactive Meeting of Directors & Finance Heads of ICAR Institutes of West Zone today 6th May 2016 at ICAR-CIFE. Shri S. K. Singh (IAS), Additional Secretary & Finance Advisor, DARE co-chaired the Meeting. Dr. Gopal Krishna, Director, ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai, Directors and Finance Heads from ICAR Institutes in the West Zone States participated.

Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra took over the charge of Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education & Director General, ICAR, New Delhi on 22nd February, 2016. Dr. Mohapatra was holding the position of Director-cum-Vice Chancellor of the prestigious Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Prior to this, he worked as the Director of National Rice Research Institute (formerly CRRI), Cuttack. He served National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, IARI, New Delhi as researcher and teacher for about 20 years. He is a scientist of global repute working in the area of molecular genetics and genomics and has over 145 research papers.

(Pause)Dr Trilochan Mohapatra's Speech

The ICAR is an autonomous organisation under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), Ministry of Agriculture. With 101 ICAR institutes and 71 Agricultural Universities, spread across the country this is one of the largest national agricultural systems in the world.

ICAR, through its research and technology development, has enabled the country to increase the production of food grains by 5 times, horticultural crops by 9.5 times, fish by 12.5 times, milk 7.8 times and eggs 39 times since 1951 till 2014.