ICAR's entrance exam for UG programmes in agriculture to be held on Sep 7-8

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) on Monday said all India entrance exam for undergraduate programmes in agriculture will be conducted by the National Testing Agency on September 7-8 this year.

The dates for the post-graduate and PhD programmes are yet to be announced, it said.

Earlier, the exam was scheduled to be conducted in June but it was postponed on account of different phases of lockdowns and other central government guidelines related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the examination has been planned in shifts on 2 days so that applicants can maintain the social distancing during online examination and avoid long travels," the ICAR said in a statement.

The dates for downloading of admit cards and declaration of result will soon be declared by the NTA on its official websites, www.nta.ac.in and/or https://icar.nta.nic.in.

About 1,97,837 students are appearing for undergraduate programmes in agriculture in various universities, and the National Testing Agency (NTA) has fixed about 178 examination Centres for the CBT (Computer Based Test), it said.

The ICAR annually conducts all India entrance exam (AIEEs) for admission to Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degree programmes in the Agricultural Universities (AUs) accredited by it.

Admissions are conducted for 15 per cent seats of UG degree programmes and 25 per cent seats each of Master's and Doctoral degree programmes of AUs under the ICAR-AU system.

At present, there are 74 AUs comprising 63 State Agricultural Universities, three Central Agricultural Universities, four ICAR-Deemed-to-be Universities and four Central Universities with agriculture faculty.

According to ICAR, the candidates having passed with 10+2 Senior Secondary or equivalent examination of a recognised Indian Board/university can apply for appearing in the examination for admission to an undergraduate degree programme.

Based on their merit rank, the candidates will get admission to the university of their choice through the online counselling to be conducted by ICAR after the examination.

The undergraduate students, based upon prescribed criteria, will be eligible to receive a National Talent Scholarship (NTS) of Rs 3,000 per month.

However, for admission to Master's and Doctoral degree programmes, ICAR said that AIEE dates will be shortly announced. The ICAR awards 600 ICAR-PG Scholarships and 300 JRF/SRF, it added.

Those candidates who are not able to secure ICAR-PG Scholarship, based upon prescribed criteria, will be eligible to receive NTS (PG) amounting to Rs 5,000 per month, while the amount of ICAR PG scholarship is Rs 12,640 per month, JRF/SRF is awarded @ Rs 31,000 for the first two years of study (JRF) and Rs 35,000 for the final year of study (SRF).

ICAR Deputy Director General (Agricultural Education) R C Agarwal informed that there are tremendous opportunities for employment/self-employment of graduates in agriculture and allied disciplines in public and private sectors in the country as well as abroad.

The ICAR is focusing on imparting inclusive and equitable quality education to nurture graduates and postgraduates who are job providers rather than being the job seekers, he added.