The Department of Microbiology was established in 1969 with Late Dr S R Vyas as the founder Head of the Department.

The Department is on the 2nd floor of the main building of College of Basic Sciences and Humanities and has an additional 17 span of Mushroom Research and Technology Complex as well as a Biofertlizer Production Unit.

The various research disciplines of the department include biofertlizers especially consortium biofertilizer for Wheat and Biological Nitrogen Fixation, Fermentation Technology, Mushroom Research and Technology. The department offers degrees in M.Sc., five-year Integrated M.Sc. (Hons.) and Ph.D programmes. Since 1999, 295 M.Sc., 89 five-year Integrated M.Sc. (Hons.) and 87 Ph.D students had been awarded the degrees.

The present faculty strength is 18 that comprise of 5 Professors/equivalent, and 13 Assistant Prof. /Equivalent. The admission strength is:

M.Sc :- 15 + 6 (ICAR)= 21
Five-year Integrated M.Sc. (Hons.) :- 20
Ph.D :- 8 + 3 (ICAR) = 11

1. The Department caters to the research and teaching needs of other Departments of the College of Basic Sciences and Humanities, College of Agriculture, College of Community Sciences and College of Horticulture and Forestry.

The faculty members have been honoured with various prestigious awards including UNDA Fellowship, ICAR Fellowship, UGC National lectureship, UNESCO Fellowship, French Govt Fellowship, DST Young Scientist Award and AMI Young Scientist Award.

The faculty has successfully completed more than 27 research projects funded by different agencies as Punjab Govt., DAE, PSCST, SBI, UGC, ICAR, DBT, DNES, and NATP.

At present the department is handling adhoc research projects (14), teaching projects (FIST) and two consultancy projects at Talwara (natural vinegar production) and Kenya (mushroom technology). The department has successfully transferred mushroom, biofertilizer production technology and vinegar and fermented beverages, testing kits and bio-enzyme technology to more than 400 growers and entrepreneurs.

The students from this department have been awarded various awards like K.S. Krishnan Award DAE; Jawahar Lal Nehru Award, Commonwealth Fellowship, Dr Atwal Gold Medal, Sukhdev Singh Gold Medal and Dr. G.S. Khush Fellowship.

The department is running Revolving Funds Scheme for supply of:-

Supply of Consortium Biofertilizer for six crops (Wheat, Maize, Potato, Onion, Sugarcane and Turmeric) and Rhizobium biofertilizer for ten crops (Summer Urd and Kharif Urd, Field Pea, Chick pea, Lentil, Moong, Summer Moong, Pigeon Pea and Soyabean, Berseem and Lucerne), Sunflower, Gobhi sarson and Rice
Testing of water, food and milk samples
Supply of mushroom spawn and compost bags
Sale of vinegar, fermented beverages, bio-enzymes, bacteriological water and food testing kit