Agricultural Universities (AUs) are mostly public universities in India that are engaged in teaching, research and extension in agriculture and related disciplines. In India, agricultural education has evolved into a large and distinct domain, often separately from other areas of higher education. Many of these universities are member of a registered society, the Indian Agricultural Universities Association. Indian Council of Agricultural Research is the main regulatory authority of agricultural education in India, while the disciplines of veterinary medicine and forestry are regulated by the Veterinary Council of India and Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education respectively. Based on the statutes establishing these universities, agricultural universities in India can be grouped into various types.
State Agricultural Universities
State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) are the predominant class of agricultural universities in India. A SAU is usually a university established by an act of state legislature with a dedicated mandate of teaching, research and extension in agriculture and related disciplines.
History of SAUs
After Independence, one of the greatest challenge before India was agriculture and rural development. This necessitated the availability of trained human resources in these areas. The first Education Commission of India (1949), headed by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, recommended setting up rural universities in India on the American land-grant model. In the 1950s, Indian Parliament was already setting up specialized engineering universities – Indian Institutes of Technology – as Institutes of National Importance. However, the Parliament had limited mandate in establishing such specialized institutions for agricultural education, despite the urgent need, as the Constitution of India had conferred the power to make laws in subjects of agriculture (including agricultural research and education) exclusively in the domain of the states.
The state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) took the first step for establishing an agricultural university in 1954, when it invited an Indo American team headed by Dr K R Damle, the Vice-President of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), to consider an area around Tarai State farm in Nainital district as a possible site for a rural university. Encouraged by the favourable view of the Damle team, senior UP government officials H S Sandhu and A N Jha visited the United States to look for collaborations with US universities. In consultation with University of Illinois dean Dr H W Hannah, the state of UP presented a proposal to the central government in 1956 for establishing a land-grant style university. Thereafter, a contract was signed between the Government of India, the Technical Cooperation Mission and a few US land-grant universities, to promote agricultural education in India. The US universities included the University of Tennessee, Ohio State University, Kansas State University, the University of Illinois, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Missouri.
The UP Act XI-V of 1958 – the founding legislative act for establishing an agricultural university – was promulgated by state legislature of UP. The task of mentoring the proposed university in UP was assigned to the University of Illinois, which signed a contract in 1959. Thus, the first state agricultural university of India, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, was established in Pantnagar (then in Uttar Pradesh, now in Uttarakhand). It was inaugurated by the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru on 17 November 1960. The model of establishing Pantnagar University paved the way for establishing state government supported dedicated universities for agricultural education, i.e. SAUs, in India. There are 54 SAUs in India.