National Talent Scholarship Postgraduate(NTS-PG)

Overview

About NTS-PG

One line in the scheme's own question sheet on the National Scholarship Portal settles who gets this money: securing admission in a post graduate programme in any non-domicile state. A student from Bihar reading for an M.Sc. at a Bihar agricultural university is outside the award no matter how the rank looks. The same student, holding an ICAR All India Quota seat in Karnataka won through the postgraduate entrance, is inside it without filling anything in.

The National Talent Scholarship is administered by the Agricultural Education Division of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and paid out of the plan scheme Strengthening and Development of Higher Agricultural Education in India. Its postgraduate arm is NTS-PG. Three things have to hold at once: the degree is a Master's in agriculture or an allied discipline, the university stands outside the student's own state of domicile, and the admission came through the All India Entrance Examination. That is how the National Talent Scholarship guidelines word it.

That wording narrows the pool sharply. The ICAR-AU system runs 74 agricultural universities, and only 30% of master's degree seats across those universities are admitted through AIEEA (PG), while the four ICAR deemed universities and the two central agricultural universities named in the bulletin fill all of theirs through it, according to the ICAR AIEEA (PG) 2026 information bulletin. NTS-PG is written against that all-India-quota slice, not against the whole master's intake of an agricultural university.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Two calendars govern an NTS-PG award, and only the first one has a deadline a candidate can miss.

The second calendar is the portal's, and it belongs to the institution more than to the student.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Neither of the two conditions measures performance. Both describe the seat itself, which is why an AIEEA (PG) rank on its own tells a candidate almost nothing about this award.

The first condition is the route. Admission has to have come through AIEEA (PG) on an ICAR All India Quota seat in an institution of the ICAR-AU system. Question 5 of the scheme's sheet meets that point with a flat No: a State Agricultural University's own entrance test opens nothing here, and the award reaches only candidates holding ICAR All India Quota seats won through the All India Entrance Examination, per the NSP NTS-PG FAQ sheet. Crossing a state boundary on a state-quota seat does not reach this scholarship.

The second condition is where the awarding university stands and how it is funded. It has to lie outside the applicant's own state of domicile, and it has to be one of the universities carried by ICAR's higher agricultural education plan scheme; the guidelines fasten both halves to the same clause.

The discipline range is wide inside agriculture and narrow outside it. Master's programmes reachable through this entrance run from agriculture, horticulture and forestry through veterinary and animal sciences, agricultural engineering, community science, fisheries and dairy science to the other allied sciences named in the bulletin. That same ICAR AIEEA (PG) 2026 information bulletin caps admissions from any one state at 40% of candidates in a given agricultural university, subject and category, which is part of why an out-of-state cohort exists to be paid in the first place.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Neither the guidelines nor the NTS-PG question sheet prints a list under that heading, so the bars have to be read out of the conditions attached to the award, and for a master's student they are specific. Taking a job, even part-time, ends the claim, because the award assumes whole-time study. Drawing a second scholarship during the course is barred too, though the guidelines bullet that carries the bar is worded for undergraduate study while the scheme record states it for the master's tenure. Quitting inside a month of admission means nothing at all is paid. Switching the subject the award was sanctioned against, or switching university mid-degree, closes it. Time lost to a strike is unpaid, and taking part in an agitation is itself a breach. All of them sit in the National Talent Scholarship guidelines, one document written for the Bachelor's and Master's awards together.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Sanction runs for a year, counted from the day the student actually joins the agricultural university, and then carries through the rest of the master's programme on the strength of a merit-and-conduct certificate signed by the head of the college or institution.

Two documents share the academic condition between them: the question sheet carries the number, the guidelines carry the penalty. The sheet ties continuation of NTS-PG to good conduct, punctuality and a minimum prescribed performance, then quantifies that last one as an OGPA or CGPA of minimum 7.00 out of 10.00, dropping to 6.50 out of 10.00 where the awardee is SC or ST, per the NSP NTS-PG FAQ sheet. The guidelines supply the consequences: the scholarship is discontinued where that minimum is not held at the end of the first year of study, with no relaxation on offer, and it stops forthwith on a fail in any paper at any stage or on an absence from a regular examination, per the National Talent Scholarship guidelines. Every paper in every semester has to be cleared for the award to survive.

On the portal side there is no separate renewal cycle to watch. Several central schemes on the National Scholarship Portal scheme list publish one closing date for fresh cases and another for renewals; NTS-PG publishes a single set of dates covering both.

What you get

Award & benefits

The figure the National Scholarship Portal attaches to NTS-PG for the current cycle is Rs 5,000 per month, payable for the entire duration of the degree programme and subject to the minimum qualifying CGPA, per the NSP NTS-PG FAQ sheet.

Two official documents state two different figures for the same award, and it is worth knowing which is which before an accounts office is questioned about a shortfall.

The lower figure lives in a file whose own title carries the year 2016, and the copy ICAR hosts on its circulars shelf is byte for byte the same document the National Scholarship Portal attaches to the scheme, so a reader who follows either link lands on the older postgraduate rate. That is why summaries of NTS-PG keep circulating it. Neither document attaches a contingency grant to NTS; the guidelines say plainly that none is paid.

ICAR never credits a master's student directly, and that single fact explains most of what students misread as a stalled payment. A year of NTS-PG is sanctioned to the institution instead: the guidelines have it paid in lumpsum in advance for a total period of 12 months to the head of the college, university or institute. The awardee then receives it monthly, at the end of each month, through a bank account carrying the Aadhaar number, because the university is required to route it as a Direct Benefit Transfer, under the National Talent Scholarship guidelines. Payment starts with the month of joining and runs to the end of the degree programme.

• ₹5,000 per month scholarship for eligible postgraduate (Master's degree) students.
• Note: No contingency grant is provided under the scheme.

What to prepare

Documents required

Proof of domicile is the load-bearing paper here, because the award turns on which state a student came from rather than on what that student scored. Everything else follows the ordinary admission file.

For release on the portal, the question sheet says the award letter issued by ICAR may be required. The bank account has to be Aadhaar-seeded, since the university is obliged to route the payment as a Direct Benefit Transfer. And each year the head of the college or institution has to certify merit and conduct, which is a document the student never handles but which the renewal depends on.

Step by step

How to apply

There is no NTS-PG form, and looking for one is the single most common wasted search on this scheme. The question sheet is explicit: candidates who appeared and were admitted through the All India Entrance Examination under ICAR AIQ seats are automatically eligible, with no separate application, per the NSP NTS-PG FAQ sheet.

What a student actually does is the admission process itself: register for AIEEA (PG) on the National Testing Agency's ICAR portal, sit the paper, qualify for registration and choice filling, and take an All India Quota seat at an agricultural university outside the home state. The bulletin states that both the ICAR-PG Scholarship and NTS (PG) are awarded only after online counselling is completed, and that NTS terms are intimated to eligible candidates at counselling. Nothing is decided before that point, which is why a rank alone tells a candidate very little about this award.

Where an NTS-PG Payment Sits Between ICAR and the Student

The National Scholarship Portal offers two separate checks, and they answer different questions. The application status login on the portal shows where a record stands in the institute and officer verification chain. Track Your Payment hands the query to the Public Financial Management System and reports on the transfer itself.

There is a trap in reading either of them for NTS-PG specifically. Because the Council releases a 12-month advance to the institution under its scheme guidelines and the institution pays month by month, a quiet month is at least as likely to be the college's disbursal cycle as a portal fault. The accounts section of the awarding university is holding the money, so that office, not the portal, is where an unexplained gap is resolved.

How winners are picked

Selection process

The scheme sets no rank threshold for NTS-PG, allots nothing subject by subject, and publishes no annual list of awardees. Question 6 on the sheet puts the annual count to ICAR directly, and what comes back is a rule rather than a figure: anyone whose admission clears the non-domicile test is inside the scheme, per the NSP NTS-PG FAQ sheet. The count follows the admissions, rather than the admissions competing for a fixed count.

The ICAR-PG Scholarship handed out at the same counselling works the other way round. Since the 2017-18 session its distribution has been worked out subject by subject from the average number of aspirants who actually appeared in AIEEA (PG) over the preceding three years, so the number of awards in a major subject moves with turnout and is finally known only at counselling, per the ICAR AIEEA (PG) 2026 information bulletin.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The guidelines end an award on four events, and a master's student can trip the first three without ever sitting a bad examination: the sanction expiring, the holder going off the roll of the college, university or institution, a drop by the institution or a gross act of indiscipline, and, fourth, not holding the academic minimum prescribed for continuance.

Walking away has a price attached. Prior approval from the Council is what separates an early exit from a recovery: without it, an awardee who abandons the master's programme is paid nothing further and has to return every rupee already drawn. The head of the institution is required to inform the Council at once when an awardee completes or leaves, and joining reports for all eligible admitted students go to the Council so the financial sanction can issue. If a student never joins, or stops continuing after a transfer, the money goes back. Separately, the bulletin warns that once admission is taken, a request to change the subject or the university will not be entertained, and the guidelines make that a payment question too.

Get help

Contact

The first call is not to Delhi. Since the Council pays the college and the college pays the student, anything about a missing or short instalment belongs to the accounts or students' welfare office of the agricultural university that admitted the awardee.

Policy questions about the scheme itself go to the Deputy Director General (Education). That desk sits in ICAR's Division of Agricultural Education at Krishi Anusandhan Bhawan - II in New Delhi and publishes ddgedu.icar@gov.in on the ICAR Agricultural Education Division contact page. Anything about the entrance test, the result or counselling is NTA's, through the ICAR examination portal linked in the bulletin. Login and payment-trace problems go to the helpdesk on the National Scholarship Portal.

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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