Dr. Mohapatra is currently working as the Chairperson, Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPVFRA), Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India, New Delhi. Prior to this, he worked for more than six years (2016-2022) as Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India as well as the Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). He worked for twenty years as a researcher and teacher at the National Institute of Plant Biotechnology (formerly National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology), New Delhi. In the year 2012, he moved to the National Rice Research Institute (formerly CRRI), Cuttack, Odisha as Director, and then to Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi as the Director and Vice Chancellor in the year 2015.

As DG, ICAR, Dr. Mohapatra successfully implemented new programmes on gene editing, precision/digital agriculture, cloning of productive cows and buffalo bulls, large-scale in situ management of rice straw etc. His focus on biofortification led to development and release of more than 80 biofortified crop varieties, which occupied more than four million hectares area in the country. During his tenure, the production of pulses and sugar touched new heights with additional ten million tons each.

Dr. Mohapatra has over 200 research papers in national and international journals of repute. He initiated and developed Molecular Breeding research and strengthened this area through intensive capacity building. His research contributions include decoding of rice and tomato genomes through international partnership, and development of more than 15 crop varieties through effective collaborations. He has rich experience of serving national and international agricultural research and development organizations and professional societies as president/chair/vice-chair/member and helped development of programmes and policies. He has the distinction of receiving several honours and awards in recognition of his excellent academic and research contributions, which include DBT Bio-science Award, NASI-Reliance Industries Platinum Jubilee Award, NAAS-Tata Award and Shri Om Prakash Bhasin Award. Dr. Mohapatra is an esteemed Fellow of leading science academies of the country. He has been conferred doctoral degree (honoris causa) by twelve different universities.