On the 4th of June, 1903, the Government of India addressed to the Secretary of State a despatch with which was submitted a scheme for the establishment of an agricultural research institute, an experimental farm and an agricultural college at Pusa in the Darbhanga district of Bihar. This despatch marks the beginning of organised agricultural research in India. To the establishment of the research station, Lord Curzon devoted the greater portion of a generous donation of £30,000 which had been given him by an American gentleman, Mr. Henry Phipps of Chicago, to be applied to some object of utility preferably connected with scientific research. In pursuance of the scheme outlined in the despatch, a research station with fully equipped laboratories, an experimental farm, an agricultural college for the training of students and a cattle farm for the improvement of the local breeds of cattle were established on the Pusa estate.

Lord Curzon's Government fully realised that a central institution under the direct control of the Government of India could only be the apex of their scheme and that such an institution would be valueless unless there were, at the same time, a real development of agriculture in the provinces. In 1905, therefore, the Government of India announced their intention of setting aside annually a sum of Rs. 20 lakhs which was subsequently increased to Rs. 24 lakhs for the development of agricultural research, experiment, demonstration and education in the provinces. The aim which the Government set before themselves was the establishment of agricultural colleges with a course of three years' duration in all the provinces and the provision of an expert staff for these institutions for purposes of research as well as for instruction. The link between the colleges and the districts was to be provided by experimental farms in charge of officers whose duty it would be to keep in close touch with the cultivators and advise them in regard to the introduction of improved methods of agriculture. In pursuance of this scheme, colleges were started or reorganised at Poona, Cawnpore, Nagpur, Lyallpur, Coimbatore and Sabour. The college at Sabour was closed at the end of 1921. A college was opened at Mandalay in 1924. A separate Department of Agriculture was constituted in most provinces and a scientific staff entertained.

For district work, a province is divided into a number of circles, each under a deputy director of agriculture. This officer is primarily responsible for the management of the experimental, seed and demonstration farms and plots in his circle as well as for seed and implement distribution and general agricultural propaganda. He is provided with agricultural assistants, drawn from the Provincial Agricultural Service and other staff.

That great progress had been achieved by the agricultural departments cannot be denied but their influence has, so far, reached a very small fraction of the total area. But, though, throughout our Report we deal at length with the problem of improving the efficiency of these departments and of extending their activities over the whole area of agricultural India, we regard this as merely one aspect of the far wider problem of creating an environment in which the

cultivator will be willing to receive and put to the best possible use the advice and help which the agricultural and other departments are in a position to place at his disposal. Our enquiry, therefore, extends to the activities of all departments which are closely concerned with rural welfare. We endeavour to show the contribution which each of them Agricultural, Veterinary, Forest, Irrigation, Co-operative, Public Health, Education and Industries can make to the creation of an environment favourable to progress in all directions. Our object is, in short, to suggest ways and means of assisting the advance of the rural community towards a fuller life. These must be designed at once to awaken the desire in that community for better things and to arm each individual member of it against the temptations that beset him without impairing either his self-respect or his spirit of manly independence.

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II. THE ORGANISATION OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

CHAPTER III OF THE MAIN REPORT.

As a result of the constitutional changes of 1919, the Government of India divested themselves, except to a very limited extent, of all powers of superintendence, direction and control over the administration of " transferred " subjects of which, from the point of view of our enquiries, agricultural and veterinary subjects are the most important. The administration of central agencies and institutions for research and for professional and technical training was retained as a "central" subject, but no specific provision was made for co-ordinating the work of these with that of similar institutions in the provinces. Thus, the provincial departments have, in the all-important matter of research, been left without the stimulus of a central organisation which could guide and co-ordinate their policy. Although no specific provision has been made in the Constitution of 1919 for co-ordinating research work, either as between the central and provincial spheres or as between province and province, there is nothing inherent in that Constitution which prevents appropriate machinery being devised for that purpose.

The basis of all agricultural progress is experiment. However efficient the organisation which is built up for demonstration and propaganda, unless that organisation is based on the solid foundations provided by research, it is merely a house built on sand. In spite of the marked progress which has been made in many directions during the last quarter of a century, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that agricultural research in this country is still in its infancy. The claims of research have received a half-hearted recognition and the importance of its efficient organisation and conduct is still little understood. The history of the scientific organisation of agriculture in other countries of wide extent and strong local administrations such as the United States of America, Canada and Australia should not make this comparative lack of appreciation of the need for organisation a matter of surprise. We have carefully studied the organisations which they have adopted and have had an opportunity of examining their representatives. We believe that the time will come in India as it has already come in those countries, when the indispensable part, which a central organisation has to play in the fields of agricultural research, and of rural development generally, will be fully recognised.

We think, indeed, that, with the undoubted demand for an increase in the pace of agricultural progress, the time has even now come when there will be a general measure of support throughout the country for proposals designed to promote co-ordination of a more effective character than would be provided by the continued existence of the appointment of Agricultural Adviser to the Government of India and by conferences of Ministers and Directors of Agriculture and meetings of the Board of Agriculture.

A reference has already been made to the Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa which is maintained by the Government of India. We feel strongly that it is essential to the advancement of agricultural research in India that Pusa should be brought into closer touch with the provincial

departments of agriculture and the latter with each other. We have considered various alternative schemes for effecting this. We have examined the possibility of what may be called sectionalising research, in other words, the possibility of constituting crop committees on the lines of the Indian Central Cotton Committee. Apart from other difficulties, a research organisation based only on crops would not fit in with the organisation of the work of Pusa and the provincial research institutions which is based on an entirely different and more logical division of research into branches of agricultural science. We have also considered the possibility of transferring the control of Pusa from the Government of India to a quasi-independent governing body on which the provinces would be represented but we doubt if this would provide in practice the requisite degree of co-ordination between the research work at Pusa and that in the provinces. We have finally come to the conclusion that a new organisation is needed to connect Pusa and the provincial research institutesan organisation to which both will stand in exactly the same relation.

We propose that an Imperial Council of Agricultural Research should be constituted, the primary function of which would be to promote, guide and co-ordinate agricultural research throughout India. It would not exercise any administrative control over the Imperial or provincial research institutions. It would be a body to which the Imperial and provincial departments of agriculture could look for guidance in all matters connected with research and to which such research programmes as they might choose would be submitted for criticism and approval. Our object in proposing that such a body should be constituted is to provide provincial governments with an organisation embracing the whole research activities of the country, veterinary as well as agricultural, in which they can feel that they have a real and lively interest. That interest will undoubtedly be greatly accentuated if the Council is entrusted with the administration of funds with which it can supplement provincial activities in the matter of agricultural research. We, therefore, propose that the Council should be entrusted with the administration of a non-lapsing fund of Rs. 50 lakhs to which additions should be made from time to time as financial conditions permit. This is, in our view, the minimum grant which can usefully be made and we have only been able to propose so low a figure on the assumption that provision for the cost of existing institutions and for normal expansion will be met from central or provincial revenues as the case may be. The Council of Agricultural Research and the Agricultural Research Fund should be constituted by an Act of the Imperial Legislature. The position of the Council of Agricultural Research in relation to the administration of the research fund would be analogous to that of the Indian Central Cotton Committee in relation to the funds raised under the provisions of the Indian Cotton Cess Act of 1923. Subject to such conditions as might be prescribed, the capital and income of the fund and any other funds received by the Council would be utilised in meeting its expenses and the cost of such measures as it might decide to undertake for promoting agricultural and technological research in the interests of agriculture in India. The powers of the Council would be regulated by rules issued by

the Governor General in Council in the Department of Education, Health and Lands similar to those issued under section 15 of the Indian Cotton Cess Act. These rules would inter aliu regulate the powers of the Council to enter into contracts and to appoint and pay officers and servants. They would further regulate the powers of the Council to incur expenditure and provide for the submission of its budget to the Governor General in Council for sanction and for the audit and publication of its accounts. We would here express the earnest hope that the agricultural research fund thus constituted will, in course of time, be considerably augmented by private benefactions. It cannot be regarded as a matter for satisfaction that the only names hitherto associated in this way with the advancement of agricultural research in India should be those of Mr. Henry Phipps of America and of the late Sir Sassoon David of Bombay.

One of the most important functions of the Council will be in regard to the training of research workers and part of its funds should be utilised in the provision of research scholarships tenable by students who have given evidence that they are capable of taking full advantage of an opportunity for intensive training in scientific research in agriculture. The Council will act as a clearing house for information and will establish bureaus for crops as well as for animal husbandry, dairying and veterinary matters. It will take over the publication work at present done by the Agricultural Adviser to the Government of India and will arrange for sectional meetings of experts in particular branches of agricultural science. We do not contemplate that the Council should have research stations directly under its control or should have its own staff of experts. It would be for the Council to decide whether a particular piece of research work is of all-India or merely of local importance and, if the former, whether it can best be carried out at an Imperial or provincial research institution or entirely outside such institutions, in a university, by private individuals, or even abroad. In order to bring the financial position of the Council into relation with the present Constitution, it will be necessary to include in the Devolution Rules a declaration that the development of agricultural research by a central authority is expedient in the public interest.

As a link with the Central Research Council, we would recommend that a Provincial Research Committee should be established in each of the major provinces which will work in close co-operation with the Council.

We propose that the Council should consist of 39 members. Three of these would be whole-time members the Chairman, who should be an experienced administrator with a knowledge, if possible, of Indian conditions, and two eminent scientists qualified to represent respectively the interests of agriculture and animal husbandry. Of the remaining thirty-six members, eight would be nominated by the Government of India, eighteen would represent the provincial, agricultural and veterinary departments, three would represent the Indian universities, two would represent the Indian Central Cotton Committee and the planting community respectively and five would be non-official members