The 42^nd Annual Group Meeting of All India Coordinated Research Project (Vegetable Crops) was organized from 22 to 24 February in the premises of Acharya Narendra Dev University of Agriculture and Technology in Ayodhya. The All India Coordinated Research Project (Vegetable Crops) provides a national grid for multi-location testing of vegetable technologies developed by various research institutes and state agricultural universities. Presently, AICRP (VC) program is being run at 36 regular, 26 voluntary centers and more than 40 private seed companies are also associated with the programme. At present the project is coordinating and directing research work on more than 30 vegetables. Dr. SK Singh, Deputy Director General, Horticulture, Indian Council of Agricultural Research was present as the chief guest at the inauguration of this meeting. He said that vegetable crops are important components of Indian agriculture as they are short duration, high yielding, rich in nutrition, economically viable and have the potential to generate on-farm and off-farm employment. India ranks second in vegetable production in the world after China. During the year 2021-22, almost a record 209 million tonnes of vegetables were produced in the country. The demand for Indian vegetables is increasing across the world and apart from production in this sector, new doors of entrepreneurship and employment generation are opening through processing, value addition and export. At the beginning of the program, Project Coordinator Dr. Rajesh Kumar presented the annual report. Bhubaneswar Center of Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology was awarded the Best Center Award for this year. In this meeting held for three days, 9 technical sessions were organized on important points like vegetable upgrading, production, conservation, in which scientists discussed the research achievements of the last year as well as brainstormed deeply for the action plan for the next year. The project was started in the year 1971 to coordinate and monitor research work on vegetables in the country. Since its inception, the project has recommended 347 open-pollinated varieties in fifteen vegetable crops and 181 hybrid varieties in ten vegetable crops for different climatic zones of the country. Also, 59 resistant varieties against various disease-pests were identified. 432 vegetable production technologies, 46 protected cultivation and 150 seed production technologies have been recommended by this project. 140 integrated disease management technologies and 200 pest management technologies have been identified and recommended against major pests and diseases in vegetable crops. New species and hybrids of vegetables were also approved in the meeting, which include round melon, amaranth, tomato, brinjal, sponge gourd and chilli. Dr. Tushar Kanti Behera, Director, IIVR said that direction and coordination on issues like arrangement of appropriate workforce, management of necessary resources, financial arrangements is being done smoothly in AICRP (VC). At the same time, new technologies are also being incorporated in data collection, analysis and reporting so that the quality and authenticity of the technologies approved by the project can be improved. The recommendations emerging from this meeting will be useful for vegetable stakeholders across the country.