About the Directorate:
Onion and garlic are the world famous spice commodities, used for flavouring the dishes. Besides culinary purposes, these are considered as valuable medicinal items. The fungicidal and insecticidal properties of garlic are well identified. Dehydrated powder & flakes, and paste prepared out of onion and garlic provide rich agro-industrial base for these commodities.

India ranks second in area (13.20 lakh ha) and production (209.31 lakh tonnes) of onion and in case of garlic, also second in area (2.81 lakh ha) and production (16.17 lakh tonnes), next to China. Besides meeting domestic requirements, India exported 34.92 lakh tonnes of onion worth Rs. 4651.72 crores during 2016-17 (DGCIS, 2017). In past 20 years, production of onion in India has increased more than four times and that of garlic more than two times. The horizontal growth in area has contributed to total production rather than vertical growth per unit area. The productivity of both, onion (17.32 t/ha) and garlic (5.44 t/ha) is far low as compared to Netherlands, USA and China. Poor yielding short day genotypes, susceptibility of all available genotypes to major pests and diseases and improper or inadequate use of production technologies lower down the productivity.

Realizing the importance of onion and garlic in the country ICAR established National Research Centre for Onion and Garlic in VIII Plan with its headquarter at Nasik in 1994. However, due to some working constraints, the Centre was shifted to Rajgurunagar on 16 June 1998. Over years, the centre has created better facilities for field and laboratories. The centre has been upgraded to Directorate of Onion and Garlic Research in December 2008. It also has an All India Network Research Project on Onion & Garlic with 25 participating centres all over the country.

Mission:

To promote overall growth of onion and garlic in terms of enhancement of quality production, export and processing.

Mandate:

♠Basic, strategic and applied research on genetic resource management, crop improvement and production technologies for enhancing and sustaining production of onion and garlic

♠Transfer of Technology and capacity building of stakeholders for enhancing productivity of onion and garlic

♠Coordinate research and validation of technologies through AINRP on onion and garlic