Jorhat, March 10: A scientist from Assam Agricultural University (AAU), professor Bidyut Kumar Sarmah, has been awarded the prestigious Norman Borlaug Chair by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research, New Delhi.

Sarmah will hold the chair as a national professor initially for a period of five years and will receive a grant of Rs 2.5 crore for conducting research on development of cisgenic chickpea resistant to pod borers. Sarmah is the first agricultural scientist from the Northeast to have been selected for this honour.

Sarmah, director of DBT-AAU Centre, and professor in the department of agricultural biotechnology of AAU, was nominated by AAU vice-chancellor K.M. Bujarbaruah for his pioneering research in making grain legumes insect-resistant by using Bt-genes.

Sarmah is a known name in the field of agricultural biotechnology research in India for developing insect-resistant Bt-chickpea, which is in the process of deregulation through confined field trials.

The Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) chickpea, developed by AAU, is one of the two genetically modified (GM) crops that was recommended for deregulation at a meeting, held to discuss deregulation of GM crops in India, in New Delhi on February 23.

He has been working in the field of gene technology for legume improvement for almost two decades and has successfully conducted several national and international collaborative researches, obtaining grant funds, including the McKnight Foundation USA, Indo-Swiss Biotechnology Research programmes, Indo-Australian Strategic Research Fund, DBT, Government of India, NSF and ICAR.

The rare honour has been given to him for the impact of his research in Indian as well as international agriculture.

Apart from several national and international recognitions, Sarmah is at present member of four important expert committeesask forces of the department of biotechnology, Government of India, and is serving as a member of the editorial board of two leading international journals of plant sciences.