India is immensely rich in its diversity of biological forms, which include all living organisms from terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are part. Microorganisms have utmost importance in agriculture and allied sector and are only alternative of agrochemical in organic and sustainable agriculture. Thus microorganisms and their processes have lot of importance in soil fertility, crop protection, nutrition and alleviating different abiotic stresses. It is realized that in the days to come, the microbes with their unique intrinsic properties, have the ability to transform primary agriculture into secondary agriculture that will be more effective, productive, eco-friendly and sustainable. But despite of the well-recognized importance of microorganisms, only less than 5% of the world's microorganisms are on record. In India, till now very limited and isolated efforts were made for tapping of the microbial diversity of agriculturally important microorganisms (AIMs), their identification and preservation for different applications in agriculture and food sectors. Thus, the importance of microbial diversity in India was realized and as a result of which, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) established the National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms (NBAIM) for exploration, evaluation and conservation of AIMs in the year 2001 at old NBPGR Building, Pusa Campus, New Delhi. The Bureau was later shifted to Mau Nath Bhanjan, Uttar Pradesh on 1st June 2004. The mandate of the NBAIM is “To act as the nodal centre at national level for acquisition and management of indigenous and exotic microbial genetic resources for food and agriculture, and to carry out related research and human resource development, for sustainable growth of agriculture”. The vision of the Bureau is based on using its resources and experiences as a Microbial Resource Center to become the pioneer in the management of standard microbial reference materials, intellectual property resources and translational research as applied to the development, standardization and certification of biomaterial. The Institute has the mission of Isolation, collection, cataloguing and documentation of microbial genetic resources using operational and cutting-edge technologies. NBAIM is recognized as National Repository by Biodiversity Authority of India Act 2002, Member of National Biodiversity Authority, Registration authority for elite microbial germplasm, National Microbial Genomic Resource Repository, Partner of National Agricultural Bioinformatics Grid. Research efforts in microbial diversity will contribute innovative methods to accelerate the discovery of new microbes. Also, a database to select and exchange information on the biological characteristics of microorganisms would be of paramount importance. The link between the biotechnology and biodiversity is another key reason for cataloguing and conserving AIMs biodiversity.

NBAIM is growing as a dynamic and vibrant organization and in future is expected to emerge as a national institution for all R&D research on microbial genetic resources with state of the art infrastructure facilities for identification, characterization and conservation of agriculturally important microorganisms. NBAIM comprises of a well-maintained National Microbial Repository, National Repository for Patentable Microbes and a Cryopreservation Facility. NBAIM is developing infrastructure facilities for microbial database and microbial information management system. The Bureau also provides good opportunities for isolating and utilizing genes for conventional and unforeseen products of high economic, environmental and agricultural values. The efforts will greatly strengthen the national capability in quarantine and other regulatory matters. It is expected that the NBAIM, Mau continues to fulfill its mandate to make Indian agriculture locally, regionally and globally competitive. Bureau has grown very fast in short span of time and will cater the need of academia, researchers and farmers.