ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region (ICAR-RCER), Patna came into existence on 22nd February 2001 with the joining of Dr S.R. Singh FNA as O.S.D. Directorate of Water Management Research, Patna was merged and started working as complex. The foundation stone of the Complex was laid by Sri Nitish Kumar, the then Hon’ble Union Minister of Agriculture, Government of India at new site near airport on 29th March 2001. On 1st April 2001, Central Horticultural Experimental Station, Ranchi and Central Tobacco Research Station, Pusa were merged in the complex. The new building ‘Laboratory-cum-Office’ of the complex was dedicated to the nation in the memory of Babu Jagjivan Ram by Sri Sharad Pawar, Hon’ble Union Minister of Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India on 16th October 2006. The office and laboratories were shifted from WALMI Complex, Phulwari Sharif, Patna.
The ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna is a broad based framework to address diverse issues relating to water and land resources management, crop husbandry, horticulture, aquatic crops, fishery, livestock and poultry, agro-processing and socio-economic aspects in holistic manner for enhancing research capability and providing a backstopping for improvement in agricultural productivity and sustainability in the Eastern Region. After amalgamation of the aforesaid three units and creation of new programmes, the ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region comprises of five research programmes viz. Land, Water, Environment and Engineering Research Programme (LWEERP), Patna; Crop Research Programme (CRP); Horticulture and Agro-forestry Research Programme (HARP), Ranchi; Livestock and Fishery Improvement and Management Programme (LFIMP), Patna; and Socio-Economic and Extension Research Programme (SEERP), Patna. The National Research Centre for Makhana has been brought under the administrative and financial control of the ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region as its Research Centre for Makhana (RCM) at Darbhanga in the 10th Plan EFC Memo of ICAR-RCER. The Complex is now a multi-commodity and multi-disciplinary institutional framework to address research issues and to develop technologies relevant to prevailing biophysical and socio-economic environment of the eastern region for sustainability and overall security of rural population.