Origin

ICAR-NBAIM is a constituent organization under the aegis of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The Bureau started functioning from July, 2001 with one Officer on Special Duty (OSD) as officiating Director and one assistant Finance &Accounts officer as regular staff. However, the Bureau made a modest beginning with the appointment of one Assistant Administrative Officer and few contractual staff. A regular Director for this Bureau was selected and joined at the ICAR-NBAIM, New Delhi on 29th April 2002. The NBAIM shifted on June 1, 2004 to the campus earlier occupied by the National Institute of Sugarcane and Sugar Technology (NISST) at Kushmaur, Maunath Bhanjan, Uttar Pradesh. The Bureau has a sanctioned cadre strength of 30 scientific, 11 technical and 15 administrative/ministerial positions, but only 15 scientific, 7 technical and 7 administrative staff are in position.

During the XIth plan, NBAIM was designated as a Recognized Repository under the National Biodiversity Act (2002) for storing microbial wealth in India and in 2014, the Bureau acquired ISO 9001:2008 certification. The Bureau is making all out effort to acquire the status of IDA by WIPO under Budapest Treaty; the proposal is in final stage of award. The Bureau is among one of the premier organizations of agricultural and microbial biotechnology prioritizing its responsibilities in the area of collection, isolation, conservation, management and utilization of agriculturally important microorganisms (AIMs) in the country. The Bureau is engaged in the multifarious activities in the area of microbial diversity, biological control, microbial genomics, preservation and maintenance of microbial cultures. The Bureau is also engaged in supply of pure cultures to various research organizations and provides microbial identification services. Developing the technical and scientific skills among the researchers, scientists, students and industry people through education and training for the microbial identification and characterization is among the prime aims of the Bureau and it is making significant progress in this area with commendable dedication.

The Bureau has fully established instrumentation facilities and working laboratory infrastructure to work in the domain of collection and conservation of microorganisms, microbial biotechnology, genomics and bioinformatics, proteomics and metabolomics, plant microbe interactions, microbe mediated alleviation of biotic and abiotic stresses and development of microbial bioformulations.

NBAIM has established and strengthened National Agriculturally Important Microbial Culture Collection (NAIMCC) which is an affiliated member of World Federation of Culture Collection (WFCC). NAIMCC has state-of-the-art facilities for short term and long term conservation of microorganisms with more than 6500 preserved accessions of fungi, bacteria, actinmoycters, cyanobacteria and archaea. The Bureau is partner of CABin project for microbial domain and is equipped with High Performance Computing System (HPC) to cater the need of high performance computing in the field of agricultural bioinformatics and computational biology.