ICAR All India Entrance Examination for Admission (Undergraduate), now held as CUET (ICAR-UG)(ICAR AIEEA UG)

About the exam

About ICAR AIEEA UG

ICAR once filled its all-India quota of bachelor's seats in agriculture and allied sciences through a paper of its own, AIEEA (UG), and NTA set that paper for the final time in September 2022. In every session since, those seats have gone on CUET (UG) scores, under an admission scheme that ICAR's 2026 documents call CUET (ICAR-UG). The test changed hands; the quota, the subject rules and the counselling did not.

For the 2022-23 session, the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin opened 11 four-year bachelor's programmes in agriculture and allied sciences, veterinary science excepted, to Indian nationals on an AIEEA (UG) merit rank. It also recorded that ICAR had entrusted its all-India examinations at bachelor's, master's and doctoral level to NTA from 2019 onwards.

The switch was announced in the NTA public notice of 28 February 2023. In its account, AIEEA (UG) had covered 20% of agricultural university seats till 2022-23, together with the whole intake at RLBCAU Jhansi, NDRI Karnal, IARI New Delhi and Dr. RPCAU Pusa; the notice then sets out ICAR's decision to admit through CUET (UG) for the 2023-24 academic year with no AIEEA (UG) held for those seats, and keeps AIEEA (PG) and AICE-JRF/SRF (Ph.D.) running as separate NTA examinations.

ICAR published a separate undergraduate bulletin for 2026 too. The CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin carries the heading "All India Entrance Examination for Admission to Bachelor Degree Programs" and applies it to CUET (ICAR-UG) for 2026-27: 20% of seats at agricultural universities, and every seat at RLBCAU Jhansi, Dr. RPCAU Pusa, ICAR-NDRI Karnal, ICAR-IVRI Izatnagar and the ICAR-IARI campuses in Assam and Jharkhand.

At a glance

ICAR AIEEA UG highlights

Calendar

Important dates

ICAR's public notice of 15 January 2026 sent 2026-27 candidates for its all-India quota seats to NTA's portal, where CUET (UG)-2026 registration ran from 03-01-2026 to 30/01/2026 at 11:50 PM. NTA then held the examination from 11th May to 07th June 2026, the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 records.

From the result onwards, the dates came from ICAR's counselling portal and its published 2026 schedule.

In 2022 the cycle opened in July, not January. The NTA public notice of 20 July 2022 took applications from 20.07.2022 to 19.08.2022 and allowed corrections from 21.08.2022 to 23.08.2022. The paper itself ran on 13 and 14 September 2022, and NTA's press release of 1 October 2022 came out on the day the result was declared.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

For the 2026-27 intake, the CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin set these conditions:

• Age and nationality: Indian nationals aged 16 or more on 31.08.2026, a floor the bulletin will not relax (bulletin section 3.3).
• Qualifying examination: Class 12 under CBSE or an equivalent recognised Indian board after 12 years of schooling, with at least three of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology and Agriculture/Inter-Agriculture as core subjects; a diploma or vocational course taken after matriculation does not count (bulletin sections 3.1 and 3.2).
• Marks: an aggregate of 50% for General, OBC (NCL), UPS and EWS candidates and 40% for SC, ST, Third Gender and PwBD candidates, read without rounding, so the bulletin's own example of 49.99% falls short of 50% (bulletin section 3.2).
• Compartments and pending results: a compartment or supplementary in any subject disqualifies unless proof of clearing it with the required percentage is available, and a candidate still awaiting the qualifying result may apply but has to prove eligibility by counselling at the allotted university at the latest.
• Subjects taken in CUET: at least three papers, each a subject passed in Class 12 and attempted exactly as chosen in the application form; a mismatch means rejection at counselling or admission.

The bulletin also warns that many admitting universities impose special conditions of their own, such as an upper age limit, a mandatory subject or a gender-specific preference, and makes finding them out the candidate's responsibility. One appears in the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026: at AMU, Aligarh, only female candidates were eligible for B.Sc. (Hons.) Community Science.

AIEEA (UG)-2022 used the same 50% and 40% category bars and the same minimum age of 16, counted on 31.08.2022, according to the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin. The difference was the paper: candidates sat one fixed subject group, PCB, PCM, PCA or ABC, instead of choosing CUET subjects.

Step by step

Application process and fee

Applying for the 2026 test meant applying to NTA alone. ICAR's CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin sent candidates to cuet.nta.nic.in to apply for CUET (UG)-2026, asked for no choice of agricultural university on the form, left the examination fee to NTA's policy, allowed one application per candidate and barred withdrawing it once submitted.

NTA's CUET (UG) 2026 Information Bulletin charged by category and by the number of subjects taken.

Counselling brought ICAR's own charges later.

For AIEEA (UG)-2022 the candidate applied on icar.nta.nic.in and paid one flat fee, not a per-subject one: Rs 800 for General/Unreserved, Rs 770 for OBC (NCL), UPS and EWS, and Rs 400 for SC, ST, PwBD and Third Gender candidates, with processing charges and GST on top, per the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

NTA, not ICAR, issued the 2026 admit card. The CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin makes the card a provisional, download-only document from the NTA website. A candidate who found a wrong photograph, signature or particular on it could contact the NTA helpline between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm and still take the test on the card already downloaded, and the same bulletin rules out a re-test for anyone who missed the scheduled date and time, whatever the reason.

The card mattered again after the result: the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 lists the NTA admit card among the documents uploaded during counselling and shown in original at physical reporting.

Three items were compulsory at the 2022 centre under the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin, and a candidate missing any one was not allowed to sit: the admit card printout, an original and unexpired government photo ID, and a copy of the application photograph, to be pasted in at the centre. Anyone reaching the centre's registration point in the final 30 minutes before the start was too late.

Structure

Exam pattern

In 2026 ICAR controlled which papers counted, not how they were set. The CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin leaves the test's design and schedule to NTA and asks only that a candidate take at least three subjects from Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology and Agriculture, each passed in Class 12.

Beyond that floor, each university named the Class 12 subject trios it would admit to each programme. The seat matrix in the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 opens Kerala Agricultural University's B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture seats to PCA and PCB candidates, and Bihar Agricultural University's to ABC, PCB and PCM. The letter codes are spelled out in the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin: P is Physics, C Chemistry, B Biology, M Mathematics and A Agriculture.

The 2022 paper was one sitting in three subjects.

What to study

Syllabus

CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 questions followed the syllabus NTA prescribes, according to the CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin, and NTA's CUET (UG) 2026 Information Bulletin puts every domain subject, Agriculture included, on the NCERT syllabus. The 2022 paper had used a syllabus prescribed by ICAR itself, as the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin states.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

ICAR's 2026 undergraduate documents do not recommend any book or study material. On content, the CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin says only that questions follow NTA's CUET syllabus, and the counselling brochure does not deal with preparation.

Where it is held

Exam centres

City allotment for 2026 was NTA's call. The CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin commits only to trying the cities in the order a candidate listed them, allows a nearby city instead for administrative reasons, and does not let a candidate change the city afterwards.

Of the 178 cities the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin offered, each applicant chose any four; the test itself ran in 136 cities, at 232 centres, according to the NTA press release of 1 October 2022.

After the exam

Answer key

For CUET (UG) 2026, NTA's CUET (UG) 2026 Information Bulletin priced a challenge at a non-refundable Rs 200 per question, accepted it only through the paid key-challenge link while the provisional keys were up, likely for two to three days, and made NTA's decision on it final. ICAR's own 2026 bulletin marks the display of provisional keys "To be announced later by NTA".

The 2022 rules were close to those, with a Rs 200 fee for each question challenged and keys expected online for three days under the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin. Once that result was out there was no re-evaluation: the bulletin treated the response display and the key challenge, both before the final key, as the candidate's only chance to dispute a mark.

Scores

Result and scorecard

ICAR built its 2026 merit list on top of NTA's CUET scores. Per the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026, it generated common ranks for the subject group or combination each candidate selected when registering on the counselling portal, and the 2026 rank card carried both the Class XII subject group and the combination attempted in CUET. Equal scores were separated first on the 12th standard percentage, then on the 10th standard percentage, then in favour of the older candidate, and finally in favour of a female candidate over a male one. Anyone with a zero or negative CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 score was barred from counselling.

AIEEA (UG)-2022 settled ties another way. The AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin looked first at marks in the main subject (Mathematics, Biology or Agriculture), then at who had fewer negative marks, then at age, then at the Class X score, and because no category had a cut-off, everyone scoring above zero could register for counselling.

That final sitting drew 89,413 registrations and 61,051 candidates on the day, the NTA press release of 1 October 2022 reports, with registrations split by shift and subject group as follows.

Scores you need

Cutoff

ICAR's CUET (ICAR-UG) 2025 cut-off file, posted on its counselling portal, opens with the first round of 2025 for Andhra Pradesh-domiciled candidates in B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture at Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University: in the UR category, the start and end marks across the three subjects are both 477.1761013, and the start and end overall ranks both 3127. Because those figures come from 2025 allotments, they describe that year's competition for seats rather than a mark to aim for in a later cycle.

Home state is part of every line, and it matters in allotment: the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 caps any one state's share of a university's ICAR seats in a programme, within a category, at 40%.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

According to the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026, ICAR introduced online counselling for these seats in 2017-18 and raised its all-India quota from 15% to 20% in 2022-23. The 2026 process on icarcounseling.com had four rounds and a mop-up round, all online, and no candidate had to report to a university in person while the rounds were running. What ICAR allotted was a university and a programme, and the university then placed the student in one of its constituent colleges.

The brochure also set out what each payment was for and when money could come back.

An upgrade request was possible in the first, second and third rounds only, and only after the Seat Acceptance Fee had been paid; a better seat, if one came through, replaced the seat already held, and the candidate could not keep both.

For the mop-up round, ICAR's revised public notice of 18 August 2026 admitted everyone who had registered consent and completed subject-combination selection for rank generation, leaving out only candidates already admitted and those who had voluntarily withdrawn a seat by the fourth round. The round ran from 18/08/2026 to 23/08/2026.

Seats the mop-up round did not fill left ICAR's hands. Clause 4.0 of the brochure passes them to the university concerned with no further step, and from then on they count as university seats, filled by that university's own procedure. ICAR's vacant UG seat matrix after the mop-up round put the 2026 total at 811. The portal's notifications page dates that list 31.08.2026.

Reservation widened between the two eras. Under the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin, central OBC (NCL) reservation applied only at BHU, PSB Viswa Bharati, SASARD Nagaland University, the central agricultural universities, IARI and NDRI, and EWS reservation only at central educational institutions, not at state agricultural universities. The CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin extends both to all agricultural universities under an ICAR notification dated 2nd November 2023. It keeps the SC and ST shares at 15% and 7.5%, swappable when one category runs out of candidates, and adds horizontal shares of 5% for PwBD candidates and 2% for candidates from the remote and under-privileged States/UTs it names.

Section 5.0 of the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 makes the National Talent Scholarship of Rs 3,000 a month, paid through the admitting university, available to each student placed on an ICAR quota seat in a state that is not the student's domicile, and awards it only after online counselling and the universities' verification of admissions.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

ICAR's 2026 documents use two counts. The CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin gives the ICAR-AU system 74 agricultural universities and, for guidance, cites 6002 seats offered through CUET (ICAR-UG) in the 2025-26 session. The ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 then grants admission for 2026-27 in 72 agricultural universities, on 20% of their seats, with the whole intake at ICAR-NDRI Karnal, ICAR-IVRI Izatnagar, RLBCAU Jhansi, Dr. RPCAU Pusa and ICAR-IARI.

The two documents place IARI's seats differently. The bulletin's list of institutions filling every seat names ICAR-IARI, Assam and ICAR-IARI, Jharkhand. The brochure's text names ICAR-IARI New Delhi instead, while the seat matrix in that same ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 shows IARI's B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture seats only at the ICAR-IARI (Hazaribagh) Jharkhand Hub and the ICAR-IARI Assam Hub, with 55 ICAR quota seats at each before EWS seats are added.

The CUET (ICAR-UG) 2026 Information Bulletin lists 13 bachelor's programmes against the 11 in the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin. B.Sc. (Hons.) Natural Farming and B.Sc. (Hons.) Agribusiness Management are the additions, and every 2022 programme, from sericulture and forestry to the B.Tech. degrees in biotechnology and dairy technology, remains.

For 2021-22, the AIEEA (UG)-2022 Information Bulletin records 2098 candidates recommended by ICAR against a total of 2879 seats, in 57 accredited agricultural universities.

Get help

Contact

For technical trouble with online counselling, the ICAR counselling portal help desk gives a helpline, +91 - 73 000 62 871, and separately an ICAR helpline, 011-25841993. Admission questions go to the Single Points of Contact at the admitting universities, whose list the ICAR-UG Online Counselling Brochure 2026 places on the portal, and Annexure-I of the brochure is a registrar directory with a phone number and e-mail address for each admitting university.

For the CUET (UG) paper, registration and scores, NTA's CUET (UG) 2026 Information Bulletin lists its helpdesk as cuet-ug@nta.ac.in, 011- 40759000 / 011-69227700. ICAR issued its revised mop-up notice of 18 August 2026 over the signature of the Controller of Examinations (Agril. Edn.), from KAB-II, Pusa, New Delhi-110012.

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

ICAR's undergraduate admission moved from the standalone AIEEA (UG), last held in 2022, to CUET (ICAR-UG) conducted by NTA, while ICAR still issues its own bulletin, ranks and counselling. The PG route remains a separate ICAR AIEEA (PG). Exact dates, fees, cut-offs, results, seat counts and counselling are per-cycle. Anything per-cycle here is stated for the cycle it names and is taken from the conducting body's own notification; confirm it on the official website before acting on it. Expertie does not conduct any exam, process applications or charge fees.

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