The Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India (GOI) has established the National Testing Agency (NTA) as an independent, autonomous, and self-sustained premier testing organization under the Societies Registration Act (1860) for conducting efficient, transparent and international standard tests in order to assess the competency of candidates for admissions to premier higher education institutions.

Established in 1984, the Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTech) is one among the chain of 37 national laboratories, 6 units and 39 outreach centres of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. Set-up to be a fore-runner in the niche domain of microbial biotechnology, the Institute in its initial years functioned from a start-up laboratory that provided a truly world-class R&D ambience in an area of over 10,000 sq. ft. to its researchers.