**1. Introduction**

India is a fast-growing economy and agrarian country. Almost 70 percent of the Indian population depends on agriculture and its allied sectors to obtain employment and sustain livelihood. The seed is considered as a basic and key input in agriculture. High-quality seed production was the major concern in the Indian subcontinent till the 1960s. Before that India was mostly dependent on the USA for food grain (PL480) to mitigate its hunger [1] and feed large human population. In order to reduce the dependence of food on foreign countries and to meet the food and nutritional demand of burgeoning population and to become self-reliant in food grain production, Indian Government established All India Coordinated Crop Research Projects (AICCRPs) and other institutes in a systemic manner to produce a large number of varieties with assured seed quality in all major crops. The production of high-quality seeds was one of the pillars to change the position of Indian agriculture into the new world order. The ultimate intention was to introduce the newly evolved high yielding cultivars to the resource-poor farmers for broadspectrum cultivation in the area of their adoption.

By seeing this scenario, the Government of India acknowledged seed an essential commodity under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. On October 1964 Varietal Release System (VRS) came into existence with the formation of the Central

Variety Release Committee (CVRC) at the national level, and State Variety Release Committees (SVRCs) at each state level. A Central Seed Committee (CSC) was established under the Ministry of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare provided in the Seeds Act, 1966. The functions of the CVRC were taken over by the CSC in 1969 to ensure the quality of seeds on sale and notification of the kinds/varieties. To perform the function at central level to release/notification, provisional notification and de-notification of cultivars, CSC constituted a Central Sub-Committee on Crop Standards, Notification & Release of Varieties for Agricultural Crops and Horticultural Crops, while to perform similar functions at state level, State Seed Sub-Committee (SSSC) was constituted [2].
