Present Director

Dr. Girish Prasad Dixit was born on 28th October 1966 in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Genetics and Plant Breeding from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi in 1993. He joined ICAR service as Scientist (Plant Breeding) on 5 August 1991 and was later posted at the Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur on 14 January 1992.

With more than 30 years of experience in pulses research, he has made outstanding contribution in genetic improvement of different pulse crops. He has developed 22 high yielding varieties of pulses, including the popular fieldpea varieties Aman, IPFD 10-12, Vikas, Prakash, Adarsh, IPFD 11-5, IPFD 6-3 and IPF 4-9. The share of fieldpea varieties developed by him is more than 68 per cent in the breeder seed production chain (2020–21), leading towards a significant contribution in increasing the productivity of fieldpea in India. The short duration varieties Prakash and Vikas, the dual purpose green seeded fieldpea IPFD 10-12 and the lodging resistant variety Aman developed by Dr. Dixit are very popular among farmers and traders.

These efforts have resulted in greater stability in the fieldpea scene with higher production in the country and a drastic reduction in the import of yellow peas. During the last seven years and eight months, Dr. Dixit led the national chickpea programme as Project Coordinator (Chickpea), focusing on integrated breeding approaches for improving yield potential, improved tolerance to stresses, market-preferred grain traits, suitability to machine harvesting, and modernization of breeding programmes through digitalization.

In the past, Dr. Dixit also acted as Project Coordinator of AICRP on MULLaRP (2 years) and AICRP on Linseed (2 years). He has executed several externally aided projects on pulses and has acted as Nodal Officer / Link Officer of the ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research Regional Station, Dharwad since April 2019. He has published more than 99 research papers, edited 5 books, 25 book chapters and 14 technical bulletins, and has been associated with the development of several IT software, one copyright and ten new germplasm lines in fieldpea and chickpea registered with NBPGR.

From 7.33 million tonnes in 2015, chickpea production in the country rose steadily to an all-time high of 13.70 million tonnes during 2022, which signifies more than 80 per cent increase over 2015.