Agharkar Research Institute Completes 70 Glorious Years of its Innings

Agharkar Research Institute located in Pune, Maharashtra, is an autonomous, grant-in-aid research institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, has completed its 70 glorious years of service to the nation. Formerly known as MACS, it was renamed to its current name in 1992.

On the completion of its 70 years, the institute’s Director Dr. Kishore M Paknikar informed that Professor S P Agharkar Memorabilia will be launched on 18th November 2016.

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The institute has entered into its 71^st year after having come a long way from its early days. The institute was started in the basement of the Indian Law Society and from there functioned for two decades.

The institute conducts research activities in microbial sciences, animal sciences, and plant sciences. The institute now has sponsorship from reputed companies like Reliance and ONGC for its bioenergy research projects.

Looking back into the history of the institute reveals how the institute had started in an unconventional way. While sharing the past history, Dr. Kishore M Paknikar said that the institute was started by a retired scientist Prof Agharkar for other retired scientists to have a place for research. At that time it was known as Maharashtra Association of Cultivation of Science (MACS). Later the institute got renamed to Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) due to the contribution of Prof Agharkar. Prof Agharkar donated everything he had to fund the institute.

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In the year 1948 Poona University was founded but before the establishment of Pune Unversity, MACS had been founded in 1946. After that, it got a permanent recognition as a postgraduate research institute. Later on, MACS had approached the Government of Maharashtra for land. In return, the Government granted five-acre of land free of cost where the institute today stands on it.

The institute has been instrumental in research areas like -

• Biodiversity
• Bioenergy
• Genetics and plant breeding
• Nanobioscience

The institute has to its credit around 2,653 papers, many of which have appeared in international journals on science and nature and has 39 patents.