ICAR Senior Research Fellowship For Post-Graduate Studies In Agricultural Sciences(ICAR-SRF-PGS)

The source record carries an opening date and no closing date, which reflects how the scheme works: the operative deadline is set each year by the examination notice, not by the scheme. For the 2026-27 session, NTA published the registration notice on May 8, 2026 and then ran the correction window, admit cards, answer keys and the declaration of results as dated public notices on its ICAR examination site.

Two dates inside the guidelines bind harder than the examination calendar, because missing either forfeits an award already won.

Two academic tests run in parallel, and the second is the one candidates misjudge. The 2016 guidelines, which supersede the guidelines of 5th December, 2014, set the Master's-level bar at an Overall Grade Point Average of 6.50 on the 10.00 scale for General and OBC candidates and 5.50 for SC, ST and Physically Challenged candidates. Where a university awards only marks, the requirement is 60% for General and OBC and 50% for SC, ST and Physically Challenged candidates, and the same clause states that an equivalence between OGPA and percentage marks will not be acceptable, so a converted figure does not rescue a transcript that falls short on its own scale.

Age is measured on the date of the examination: 30 years for the General category, relaxable by 5 years for SC, ST, Women, Physically Challenged and OBC non-creamy-layer candidates, and 45 years for in-service candidates of an agricultural university, whose academic requirement stays unchanged, per the same guidelines. A candidate holding a Bachelor's degree of three years' duration is not eligible, with a narrow proviso for those already enrolled for a Master's on the date of the notification. The postgraduate degree has to be complete in every respect, with the Registrar's certificate produced on or before 30th June or the date of counselling, whichever is later.

There is no family-income ceiling anywhere in the guidelines. Selection runs on examination merit and the admission that follows it.

Where the scheme record and the guidelines differ, the guidelines are the operative document. The record's method-of-award line names a Master's programme, and it states a lower mark bar and a shorter age relaxation for OBC candidates than section 4 of the revised guidelines lays down for ICAR-SRF (PGS).

Nothing is entered under exclusions in the source record, yet three conditions in the fellowship guidelines end applications that clear the marks bar. A fellow may not hold any other fellowship or scholarship during the tenure of an ICAR fellowship, and a candidate already drawing one has to surrender it before accepting the Council's, per the 2016 guidelines.

The route is also closed at both ends of the university list. Admission has to be taken through counselling conducted by ICAR at an agricultural university, which shuts out a seat won directly from the university, and it cannot be taken at an ICAR deemed-to-be-university, whose doctoral seats go entirely through its own entrance examination. Doing the Ph.D. at the university that granted your Bachelor's or Master's degree puts you outside the award as well.

There is no yearly re-application by the student, and no renewal form to file. Money is released to the Head of the Institute or agricultural university in advance for the first year once the fellowship is sanctioned, and every subsequent year needs two papers moving upward: a demand for funds from that Head, and a certificate from the candidate's guide, approved by the Head, that progress is satisfactory against the time schedule and that the required OGPA has been maintained. The guidelines state plainly that no renewal application will be entertained by the Council if the required OGPA has not been maintained.

A second assessment sits on top of that. ICAR's circular file for the JRF, SRF and PG scholarship schemes records that an external assessment by the institution where the student is enrolled is mandatory after two years for upgradation from JRF to SRF, and that an annual satisfactory assessment is mandatory to continue the benefit during the SRF period. Continuing to draw the fellowship into the third year, the year the rate steps up, runs through that annual assessment.

The award pays a monthly fellowship plus a contingency grant, and the monthly figure rises once during the doctorate.

The two per-discipline monthly figures carried in the scheme record are older prescribed rates, not what a doctoral fellow draws now. Tenure is three years and the guidelines say it will in no case be extended beyond that period. They deliberately do not fix an amount: rates of fellowship and contingency grant are whatever the Council prescribes from time to time, which is why the figure moves by office order rather than by an amendment to the guidelines themselves.

That drafting is visible in the paper trail. An office order of 30th October, 2018 set the doctoral rate at Rs 25,000 a month for the first and second years and Rs 28,000 for the third, and a memorandum of 3rd July, 2019 revised both slabs to the current figures while leaving the contingency grant unchanged and keeping the fellow's rail entitlement for scientific events in India as it was, per the ICAR circular file.

The upload set the application form asks for is the National Testing Agency's, not ICAR's, and it is listed below. What the guidelines add is a second set that only matters after a candidate has been selected, and it is where an award is most often held up.

At registration in the university, the fellow executes a surety bond of the amount the Council prescribes, to secure completion of the programme. The Registrar's degree completion certificate has to reach the university on or before 30th June or the date of counselling, whichever is later. Certificates for SC, ST, OBC and Physically Handicapped status are verified by the agricultural university where admission is granted, not by the Council. At each renewal, the guide's progress certificate is the document that unlocks the next year's funds. All four are set out in the 2016 guidelines.

Nothing in this paperwork asks a candidate to prove family income or domicile. The bond, the Registrar's certificate and the guide's yearly note are what the Council actually collects.

Applying for the fellowship means sitting the all-India competitive examination for the award, which the 2016 guidelines call AICE-SRF (PGS) and place in the Council's own hands. That examination now runs through the National Testing Agency alongside the postgraduate entrance test, under the name ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF (Ph.D.), so a candidate searching for the old title finds the new one. Registration for the 2026 cycle opened with a notice published on May 8, 2026 on NTA's ICAR examination site.

Every stage after submission is announced on that same NTA site, and not on any scholarship portal. NTA issues the confirmation page, the advance intimation of the examination city, the admit card, the provisional answer key with its challenge window, the final answer key and the result for the session as separate public notices on the ICAR examination site, and each one appears there before it appears anywhere else.

Payment is a different chain, and knowing which door to knock on saves months. The fellow does not draw the money from ICAR. Funds go to the Head of the Institute or university, and the demand for each subsequent year is raised by that Head, per the 2016 guidelines. ICAR routes its fellowship orders to the nodal officers and comptrollers of the agricultural universities, as the circular file shows, so a stalled instalment is a university-level question before it is a Council-level one.

Selection is merit in the all-India competitive examination for the award, combined with concurrent admission to a doctoral programme taken through ICAR counselling, on the 25% of seats reserved for this route in accredited agricultural universities under the ICAR-AU system. The fellowship is granted only when both halves happen, and only when the Ph.D. is pursued at an agricultural university other than an ICAR deemed university, per the 2016 guidelines.

Reservation follows Government of India rules as issued from time to time, and the responsibility for verifying the genuineness of category certificates rests with the university where the candidate is admitted. Beyond examination merit and that admission, the guidelines publish no weightage formula, interview stage or cut-off rule.

The fellowship is admissible to persons of Indian nationality as defined in the Constitution of India or persons domiciled in India. The fellow works under a recognised guide on the faculty of the agricultural university and is under the administrative control of its Head, and the award takes effect from the date of joining the course or the start of the academic session for which it was offered, whichever is later. Payment stops for the period of a strike, for the period a fellow is on conduct probation, and for any day the fellow does not attend class or the student seminar in the department, per the 2016 guidelines.

Leaving early is treated severely. No fellowship amount is paid if a fellow leaves within six months of joining the course, and a fellow who leaves without prior approval is paid nothing from the date of leaving. Termination follows without notice if the fellow ceases to be on the university's rolls, leaves the institution, is dropped for poor performance, or is found negligent in studies or guilty of unbecoming conduct. After completion, a soft copy of the thesis goes to the Council within three months, the Council's financial assistance is acknowledged in the thesis and in research papers, and ICAR holds the intellectual property rights in the research output, with authorship credit decided by the guide. Leave is governed by the ordinary rules of the university, exactly as for any other student there.

The scheme is administered by the Agricultural Education Division of ICAR at Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan-II, Pusa, New Delhi 110012. The 2016 guidelines circular carries the division's telephone number 011-25843635, telefax 011-25840851 and the address adghrd1.icar@gmail.com for correspondence on the fellowship. Questions about the application form, the fee or the admit card belong instead with the National Testing Agency's helpdesk on the ICAR examination site. No separate scheme helpline is published for candidates.