The All India Coordinated Project on castor started in 1967 under All India Coordinated Research Project on Oilseeds (AICORPO) with four centres viz., Rajendranagar (Andhra Pradesh), Vijapur (Gujarat), Raichur (Karnataka) and Salem (Tamil Nadu). The project along with other oilseed projects was centrally planned, coordinated and monitored by a Project Coordinator stationed at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. In IV Plan, post of one Associate Coordinator for castor was created at Hyderabad who with the assistance of one technical and one supporting staff helped the Project Coordinator.
The AICRP (Castor) was strengthened in VI Plan with the up gradation of the Associate Project Coordinator’s position to Project Coordinator. The Project Coordinator was created to independently plan, monitor and coordinate the castor project and the Project Coordinating Unit was located at Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. The project got further fillip in 1977 with the elevation of the project to the status of Directorate of Oilseeds Research (DOR) with a Project Director located at Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. In VI plan, research activities shifted from Rajendranagar to Palem in 1981 while two new centres- Dholi in Bihar and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh were created. Thus, a total of 7 centres including the Project Coordinating Unit were given the mandate to develop their region-specific castor genotypes coupled with other technologies. The AICRP (Castor) was further strengthened in VII Plan (1985-90) by inclusion of 3 more centres i.e., Junagadh, Semiliguda and Mandor. The castor research work was shifted to Tindivanam from Salem in Tamil Nadu.
In IX Plan, based on the Jain Committee recommendations, there was further integration of these projects. Accordingly, the post of Project Coordinator of castor was abolished and the Project Director of DOR was given the responsibility to plan, coordinate and monitor the AICRP (Castor) from 1st July 2001. At present, AICRP (Castor) network has 9 centres operating from eight states viz., Andhra Pradesh (Ananthapur), Telangana (Palem), Odisha (Bhavanipatna), Karnataka (Bengaluru), Tamil Nadu (Yethapur), Gujarat (SK Nagar, Jungadh), Rajasthan (Mandor) and Haryana (Bawal).