Subsequent to the recognition of Soil Survey as a National Priority in 1947, a need was felt for creating a centralized information warehouse to assimilate, verify and disseminate information on the nature, extent and distribution of soils in the country. Consequently, the Government launched All-India Soil Survey Scheme in 1956, which expanded in 1959 as the All-India Soil and Land Use Survey Organization (AIS&LUS).......

In 1969, the AIS&LUS was bifurcated into two wings, one being under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research(ICAR). It was later in 1973 reconstituted as a Directorate through a Presidential Notification. The Directorate was accorded the status of a Bureau in 1976 and was named as National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP) with its Hqrs. at Nagpur, Maharashtra. It is one of the fourteen Natural Resource Management (NRM) institutes of the ICAR entrusted to conduct RD&T activities mainly in soil survey, remote sensing applications, land evaluation and land use planning.