Legumes, by virtue of being rich source of proteins and nitrogen-fixers, are important components of agricultural activity. It is considered that chickpea (Cicer arietinum) was domesticated in North/Middle-East during Neolithic times to ultimately become the part of "Grain Ensemble". Its world-wide production crosses nine million tons. India accounts for 65% of world-wide land under chickpea cultivation and 60% production. Within India, chickpea contributes 45% of pulse basket and occupies 33% of the total land under pulse cultivation. Two common types of chickpea are represented by "Kabuli" and "Desi" and show low level of genetic variability. The size of chickpea genome is estimated to be 740 Mb. It is estimated that variability of over 20,000 accessions of chickpea at ICRISAT might be represented by a core and minicore germplasm collection of 1956 and 211 accessions, respectively.

           The productivity of grain legumes, in general, and chickpea, in particular, is low and it is further reduced tremendously mainly due to abiotic and biotic stresses. Thus, improvement in yield, nutritional quality and stress tolerance are main targets for research. Improvement of chickpea entails bridging the huge gap between genotype and phenotype. This requires development of resources to complement ongoing efforts on genetic enhancements which could include (i) generation of genome-wide sequence and assessment of natural variation at DNA level; (ii) analysis of biologically relevant genes/alleles correlating with specific traits on the basis of transcriptome, proteome and function; (iii) data analysis, management and dissemination; and (iv) genomics-assisted breeding.

            Next generation sequencing technologies have ushered in a new era in sequencing, genotyping and transcriptomics. Availability of the sequence of a reference genome of chickpea can be utilized to assess DNA level variability by way of high-throughput genotyping of selected germplasm and mapping populations. This could help generate an enriched DNA based genetic map of chickpea for mapping important traits. The gene content unraveled from sequence could aid in comparative genomics and support the understanding of the molecular basis of useful traits by transcriptomics, proteomics and regulatory networking. Some time back, Scientists of NIPGR initiated a programme on chickpea genome research. This has generated useful information on genome diversity, marker development, molecular mapping, ESTs, and gene function analysis.

            Keeping the above in view, to grow from existing strength and to diversify for innovation, Next Generation Challenge Programme on Chickpea Genomics has been initiated by nine NIPGR Scientists, with the following objectives :-

       The research programme would develop enabling tools and genomic resources for chickpea community and seek national/ international collaboration.The outcome is expected to serve as key component for future research on chickpea molecular breeding, gene mapping, functional genomics and genetic enhancement for important agronomic traits.