Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal

The Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering (CIAE) is a higher seat of learning, research and development in the field of agricultural engineering, situated in the lake city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is an autonomous body, an Indian Council of Agricultural Research subsidiary, under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer's Welfare, Government of India.
ICAR-CIAE was established on 15 February 1976 at Bhopal, with a view to provide a research platform for Agricultural Engineering. The early mandate was to address the areas of farm machinery, post harvest technology and energy in agriculture. However, the range of activity was later extended to cover Agro-Industrial Extension, Instrumentation and Irrigation and Drainage Engineering.
CIAE was established with a mandate to:
CIAE is equipped with various laboratories:
CIAE Research Farm covers an area of 92.66 hectares distributed for Crop cultivation, Orchards, Water harvesting ponds, Degraded waste land, Sports complex, Roads, Residential and non-residential buildings and a Meteorological observatory. The farm activities are divided into two sections namely Farm Production & Field Research Management Section and Landscaping, Gardening and Horticulture Section.
The centre has a Prototype Production Workshop, equipped with machining, welding, grinding, press work, cutting and shearing, tool and die making and heat treatment facilities. The workshop is used for batch production of prototypes for multi-location trials and pilot introduction. CIAE has a Research workshop also catering to the needs related to fabrication of new designs of research prototypes and set-ups and refinement of existing designs.
CIAE has a library which is open to the staff, extension workers and other university students coming under the MOU programs and is home to 11921 books, 4169 bound journals, 3405 reports/ bulletins, 98 CIAE publications, and 245 CD-ROMs. It is housed in an area of 5400 sq ft and subscribes to 135 journals, both Indian and foreign. It is also equipped with computer and related infrastructure.
PME Cell in CIAE is an NAIP program, established on 1 June 2007, with a mandate to:
AKMU is the management unit of CIAE on matters related to computers, networking and other areas of digital technology. It maintains the Information and Communication activities of the Institute through modern infrastructure and home developed and outsourced software.
CAD Cell is equipped with modern hardware and software to accommodate the design documentation needs of the institute. It is staffed by experienced personnel who oversee activities from production drawing to the stage of transfer of technology. The cell also provides training facilities on Computer-Aided Design.
The Instrumentation Cell of CIAE is equipped with modern equipment such as:
The institute also maintains a Guest House to accommodate 48 guests and as a Trainees' Hostel to house 32 trainees.
The International Training Centre (ITC) at the Institute provides facilities for International training and Conferences. The centre has a conference hall and communication and accommodation facilities.
CIAE is affiliated to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and is accredited Indian Council of Agricultural Research by the New Delhi for its MTech course in Energy in Agriculture. It also extends its infrastructure facilities to students for research programs.
CIAE is home to an Agricultural Technology Information Centre (ATIC), established in November 1999, to act as a single window for technology information, advisory services and supply of prototypes and farm equipment. The centre has a declared mandate to:
The centre is engaged in the distribution of un-priced and priced publications, the sale of seedling and planting materials, bio-fertilizers, processed farm products, soy food products, fish feed and Video Cassettes/CDs, providing information through Agricultural Equipment Display Center, exhibitions and manufacturers' meet and the collection of feedback and its transmission.
Research and development activities at CIAE may be classified into three major heads:
CIAE is credited with the development of several agricultural and related equipment.
CIAE has lined up a series of regular research projects where research fellows and students can participate. The below mentioned list gives a bird's eye view of the research activities at CIAE on a regular basis.
CIAE has four types of externally funded projects.
CIAE hosts many National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) projects.
The National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was inaugurated on 2 February 2011 CIAE as one of core institutes with Strategic Research, Technology Demonstration, Capacity Building and Sponsored/ Competitive Grants were the main elements of the project. CIAE hosts the researches on enhancement of resilience of Indian agriculture to climate change and climate vulnerability.
The following are the ongoing R and D activities at CIAE under NICRA project:
The National Fund for Basic, Strategic and, Frontier Application Research in Agriculture provides funding for various CIAE projects on the Use of machine vision for distinguishing among crop varieties. The research program aims to develop methodology for distinguishing among varieties/ germplasm of rice, Indian mustard, chickpea and okra using visible imaging and to optimize imaging and image processing parameters under visible spectral domain. Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, National Bureau of Plant Genetics Resources, New Delhi and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Kolkata participate in the project.
ICAR has placed a National Fellow Project at CIAE on the subject, "Development of Soy and Multigrain based nutritionally balanced functional foods for children". The project aims to eradicate malnutrition in children by making cost effective nutritious and easily assimilated food available to children. The main focus of the project in on the use of seasonal, local, low-cost and abundantly available raw food ingredients having high nutrition and functional properties like cereals, coarse cereals and millets, soybean, dairy ingredients and horticultural produce.
The main objectives of the project are:
Optimisation of ingredients and process parameters for preparation of ready to eat mixes, snacks specially designed for children.
CIAE has brought out many publications for students and general community.
Research Publications