All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Tuber crops (other than Potato) was initiated during the Fourth five year Plan in 1968; for networking research and extension activities in root and tuber crops. The project started working initially at three Agricultural Universities viz., RAU, Dholi; TNAU, Coimbatore and APAU, Rajendranagar with headquarters at RAU, Dholi. During 1970s, seven more Centres were initiated. The headquarters of the Project was shifted to the Regional Centre of CTCRI, Bhubaneswar during 1983. The headquarters of the Project is currently located at the Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram. At present there are seventeen centres, thirteen of them are located at the different State Agricultural Universities and two voluntary centres are located at ICAR Research Complex, Shillong and Central Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair.

The important crops covered under the project include Cassava, Sweet potato, Colocasia (Swamp taro, bunda and eddoe type), Dioscorea spp. Amorphophalus and Pachyrrhizus and minor tuber crops like Winged bean, Arrowroot, Coleus, Xanthosoma etc., are also being taken care of. A total of 4318 accessions of different tuber crops are being maintained at 12 Centres of AICRPTC.

Through its network centres, AICRPTC has recommended a number of varieties of tuber crops for release/cultivation in different regions of the country. The varieties comprise of 10 cassava, 14 sweet potato, seven yams, seven taro, three elephant foot yam and one each in xanthosoma and yam bean. The sweet potato variety Sree Bhadra, Sree Vardhini and RS-47, lesser yam variety Konkan Kanchan, Colocasia variety Sathamukhi, Elephant foot yam variety Gajendra and Yam bean variety RM-1 have become very popular in different regions of the country and are being widely cultivated by farmers.

AICRPTC has contributed significantly to the scientific and farming community of India since 1968. ICAR has approved a plan budget of Rs. 449.93 lakhs for the X plan 2002-2007 mainly to support testing and popularization of tropical tuber crops and their production and utilization technologies in vs parts of India.