Established on September 20, 1924, Indian Lac Research Institute (ILRI) had been the nodal Institute at national level for providing research and development support to all aspects of lac such as production, processing, product development, technology dissemination, information repository and national and international cooperation. It has immensely contributed towards all round development of lac besides maintaining India`s leadership in production, installed processing capacity and export.
 

In view of production systems, economy and application areas, which were largely overlapping for lac and other natural resins and gums, mandate of ILRI was expanded that enabled creation of a single national organization addressing the research and development needs of this class of natural materials. The mandate of this Institute was therefore, expanded to include all natural resins and gums, besides lac and the name of the institute was changed to Indian Institute of Natural Resins and Gums (IINRG) on September 20, 2007. Adequate R & D support to this sub-sector enabled India to emerge as the leader in some more resins and gums besides maintaining leadership in lac, guar gum and karaya gum.

To increase the income of farmers, value addition of the produce and utilizing the crop residues is attaining high priority. Secondary Agriculture is high value addition to primary agriculture. It helps in using all parts of an agricultural produce (e.g. crop residues, animal hair, bones, viscera, etc), processing to enhance shelf-life, increasing total factor productivity, and generating additional jobs and income for farmers. Certain alternative agriculture activities like Lac culture, beekeeping, mushroom cultivation, agri-tourism, etc, also fall under the ambit of secondary agriculture. By-products from agricultural crops, if processed appropriately for deriving industrial products could pave a way in getting better economic returns from agriculture.

Keeping in view the importance of secondary agriculture in rural industrialization in order to improve farmer's income, it was proposed to further widen the mandate of the IINRG. Therefore, the Governing Body of ICAR Society in its 256th meeting approved the proposal and the new name of the Institute as National Institute of Secondary Agriculture. Consequent to this decision of the Council, Indian Institute of Natural Resins and Gums has been rechristened as National Institute of Secondary Agriculture (NISA) w.e.f. September, 20, 2022.

ICAR-NISA also houses National Lac Insect Germplasm Centre (NATLIGEC) which was declared open by Dr Mangala Rai, the then Director General, ICAR on November 27, 2007. Lac Insect Field Gene Bank has the largest collection of live lac insects in the world collected from throughout the country. The lac insect stocks are conserved on the potted plants of Flemingia macrophylla. Similarly, large collections of different lac host plant species are maintained in the Lac Host Plant Gene Bank. ICAR-IINRG, the 3rd oldest institute within ICAR, is proud of its distinguished service to the nation, with an exhaustive list of achievements to its credit.

The Institute is situated 9 km south-east of Ranchi city, on the National Highway - 33 (Ranchi-Jamshedpur), at an altitude of 650 m above mean sea level between 23^o23'' N latitude and 85^o23'' longitude, with a mild and salubrious climate.