The ICAR-Central Potato Research Institute was established in 1949 at Patna, Bihar and later shifted to Shimla, Himachal Pradesh in 1956. Its primary mandate is to undertake basic, strategic and applied research to enhance sustainability, productivity, quality and utilization of potato and also to produce disease-free nucleus and breeder’s seed of different notified varieties developed by the Institute. These activities are being carried out through a network of 7 regional stations in addition to its headquarters at Shimla.

The ICAR-All India Coordinated Research Project on Potato was started in 1971. Its mandate is coordination and monitoring of multi-location trials of advanced potato hybrids and development of agronomic practices related to production and protection technologies vis-à-vis identification of remunerative potato based cropping systems, plant protection measures and post harvest technology, in order to facilitate enhancement in potato production, productivity and utilization in the country. It is also mandated to establish linkage between different stakeholders connected with potato production and utilization and is the agency for transfer of technologies to the line departments. Multilocation testing of varieties and technologies is thus the forte of AICRP(Potato). These activities are being carried out through a network of 18 State Agricultural Universities based centres and 7 ICAR-CPRI centres.