CDRI administratively functions under the council of scientific and Industrial Research of India which has its headquarter at New Delhi. CSIR is an autonomous umbrella organization funded by the Central Government. CSIR of India is considered to be the largest public funded R&D organization, which has such a large number of well-trained scientific manpowers.
The Prime Minister of India who governs it as its president heads CSIR. The minister of science and Technology is normally the vice President. The Director General of CSIR is chosen from among the pool of senior scientists of CSIR laboratories who has the onus of framing guidelines and directions for all the laboratories under its control.

There are altogether thirty-eight laboratories under CSIR where R & D work on almost all areas of scientific and industrial arena is being carried out. The laboratories of CSIR are spread over almost all area of this vast nation. The field stations numbering eighty are situated in various parts of the country. CSIR has a huge manpower of more than twenty thousand out of which seventy five percent of people are in scientific and technical cadre. Every individual holds expertise in his own area of activity. The annual government budget of CSIR is about a thousand crore of rupees apart from the receipt that CSIR gets from its own technologies and products. The technologies and products developed by CSIR have been in extensive use. It is estimated that nearly six thousand crore worth of products are being manufactured using technologies developed by CSIR.