NDRI Institute Scholarship For M.Sc. And Ph.d(NDRIIS)

Overview

About NDRIIS

There is no form to fill for this one. ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute offers its Institute Scholarship to every student of Indian nationality admitted to its Master's and Doctoral programmes, and the only bar in the eligibility clause is that the student holds no other financial assistance, per the institute's scholarship and fellowship rules. Win the seat at Karnal and the money follows the admission letter.

What decides whether it keeps arriving is a semester-by-semester academic test that most published summaries of the scheme leave out.

This is an institute-level award administered at Karnal under ICAR, not a national competition with its own merit list. The reader it is built for is a dairy science graduate who has cleared the entrance route into a Master's or Ph.D. at Karnal and is now working out what the seat is actually worth in cash.

Two figures set the scale. A Master's student on the rolls receives Rs 7,560 per month and a doctoral student receives Rs 25,000 per month for the first two years, rising to Rs 28,000 in the third, both figures published in NDRI's scholarship rules and repeated in the Information Bulletin for the 2025-26 academic session. Only the doctoral rate steps up part-way through, and that step is what a candidate weighing an M.Sc. seat at Karnal against a straight doctoral entry should price in.

The award runs on NDRI's own rules and its own calendar. Nothing about it is routed through a national scholarship portal.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The scheme has no annual opening or closing date. The dates that decide anything are the admission dates and the two payment periods the academic year is divided into.

A student who registers late with a late fee is paid from the date of registration in that semester, not from the start of the period, under NDRI's academic rules and regulations.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Indian nationality plus a live admission to a Master's or Doctoral programme at NDRI is the whole academic test, and the exclusivity clause does the rest of the work. The rules state that scholarships are offered only to students who do not hold any other financial assistance or scholarship, and that the award terminates as and when a student receives or accepts assistance from any other source.

Getting the admission is where the real filter sits, and it runs differently for the two programmes. A Master's seat comes off the all-India PG entrance examination, which the Information Bulletin puts in the hands of the National Testing Agency under the Ministry of Education, advertised on the NTA and ICAR websites, with ICAR finalising the names after online counselling.

The doctoral route is where NDRI's own pages disagree. The Information Bulletin routes Ph.D. admission, and the award of the ICAR fellowships with it, through the all-India competitive examination ICAR runs via the National Testing Agency, followed by ICAR counselling. The institute's admission page still describes a paper of NDRI's own instead: one objective paper on the subject matter of the discipline, 150 marks over two hours, qualifying at 50% and at 45% for SC, ST and physically handicapped candidates. Treat the Bulletin as the current session's document and watch the academic notice board before assuming either.

Both programmes also carry a qualifying-degree bar of 60% marks, or an OGPA of 6.60 out of 10.00, with the floor for SC, ST and physically handicapped candidates set at 50% or 5.60, per the admission rules.

NDRI's rules set no means test; what a candidate's family earns never enters the calculation, and category enters it only through the one narrow renewal relaxation described below.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The scheme record carries a blank under exclusions. NDRI's own documents carry four, and three of them are not obvious from the eligibility clause.

Inside the in-service provisions sits a geography bar: candidates from the NDRI campus at Karnal, and those belonging to other ICAR institutes located at Karnal, are not eligible for the award, while a candidate employed by NDRI but coming from one of its regional stations is, per the scholarship rules. A student on conduct probation is not paid for the duration of the probation. A student relieved from the university to take up a fellowship under a collaborative programme draws nothing from the date of relief until the date of rejoining, and that period still counts against the total tenure of the award, so time away is not recovered later.

The fourth is recent. NDRI's admission notice of 12 August 2026 for direct admission of national-level fellowship holders states that candidates admitted under that category shall not be eligible for the Institute Fellowship after the expiry or discontinuation of their external national-level fellowship. A CSIR-JRF, UGC-NET/JRF or ICMR fellowship holder who enters Karnal through that route does not fall back onto NDRI's award when the outside money runs out.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

The scholarship is renewed period by period against a marks test, and the test is stricter than the pass standard for the degree. A Master's or doctoral student has to carry an aggregate of 65% marks, or 6.5 on the institute's 10.0 grade point scale, across major, minor and supporting courses in the previous semester before being paid in the next one, per the rules. For any course the student did not sit or was detained from, zero marks are counted into that aggregate. For a failed course, the actual marks obtained are counted.

Falling short does not end the award outright. A student who clears all the course work but misses the aggregate has to re-appear in the courses scored below 65% at the supplementary or semester-end examinations, and becomes eligible again from the date of clearing them, with the Joint Director (Academic) reviewing such cases after the supplementary results are declared. For SC and ST students below the bar, the Joint Director or Director may relax up to 5%, once only in the entire academic programme.

Two mechanical conditions sit alongside the marks. Every prescribed course has to be registered for in every semester, with research counted as a course for this purpose, and a student who does not register for all of them is not paid for that period. Each month's release also waits on the prescribed progress report, and each period's release waits on the previous semester's results being declared.

What you get

Award & benefits

The monthly rate depends on the programme and, for doctoral students, on whether they are in service.

Tenure runs from the date of joining and ends on the date of thesis submission or on completion of the prescribed period, whichever comes first: two years for a Master's student entering with a four-year bachelor's degree and three years for one who has to clear a pre-requisite year, three years for a doctoral student with a 4+2 background and four years for one carrying a pre-requisite year. The rules say no extension is granted for any reason whatsoever.

The in-service figure is an adjusted balance rather than a flat top-up. For a candidate on study leave or deputation drawing study, halting or deputation allowances on top of full leave salary, the fellowship amount is adjusted so that the maximum benefit is Rs 3,000 per month, under ICAR instructions of 29 October 1998 and 24 November 1998 reproduced in the same rules. Candidates on partial salary or leave without pay draw the same Rs 3,000, provided they are not already drawing a JRF or SRF, are employed in the ICAR or state agricultural university system, opt to join at a place other than where they work, and are not taking a third degree from the same institute. The contingent grant is payable to all in-service candidates from that system, including those who do not qualify for the scholarship itself.

The contingency grant is not cash in hand. It is spent against fixed heads with published ceilings.

The doctoral research contingency ceiling of Rs 25,000 sits above the Rs 10,000 annual grant, which reads as a limit per head across the award rather than an annual entitlement. Within that head, conference, seminar and workshop registration or annual society membership is capped at Rs 3,000. Spending is not reimbursed on demand: a proposal goes up on the prescribed proforma, recommended by the major advisor and the head of division, and purchase action on a sanctioned proposal has to be taken within one month of the sanction date.

• ProgrammeInstitute Scholarships DetailsMaster's degree₹7,560/- P.M. for two years + ₹,6000/- per annum as contingencyPh.D.₹25,000/- P.M. for first two years, ₹28,000/- during third year, and ₹10,000/- per annum as contingency.Ph.D. (In-service)₹3,000/- P.M. for three years and ₹10,000/- per annum as contingency

What to prepare

Documents required

The paperwork splits into what creates the award and what keeps it alive, and only the first set is a one-time job. Acceptance of the award and the undertaking to follow the scholarship rules are filed once on the prescribed proformas, and the rules make the award conditional on receiving both.

The undertaking proforma NDRI posts on that page shows what a signature commits to: not leaving the course during the tenure, not availing any other scholarship or stipend, and refunding the entire scholarship amount in a lump sum if that is concealed. The progress report is the recurring one, filed on its own proforma, and it gates each month's release. Contingency spending needs its own separate proposal proforma before any purchase.

Semester registration records and the previous semester's mark sheets are what the office actually checks each period, because the 65% test and the full-registration condition are both verified from them.

Step by step

How to apply

There is no application window and no application form for the scholarship itself. The application is the admission, and the award attaches to the seat once the acceptance and the undertaking are on file.

For a Master's seat that means registering for the all-India postgraduate entrance examination conducted by the National Testing Agency and going through ICAR counselling. For a doctoral seat it means applying to the Joint Director, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal 132001, on the prescribed form with attested copies of the certificates listed in the admission rules, and the entrance examination that follows is whichever one that session's Bulletin names. In-service candidates for both programmes send applications through proper channel with employer sponsorship, and are counselled at NDRI rather than in the central ICAR counselling, per the Information Bulletin.

How to Track a Payment

NDRI does not publish an online status tracker for this scholarship, and the scheme record's application link points at ICAR's education portal, which is the admissions route rather than a page where a student watches an instalment. What the rules do publish is the sequence a delayed payment usually sits in: a period's money is released only after the previous semester's results are declared, each month's release only after the progress report reaches the office, and the last full month's scholarship only after the thesis or dissertation is submitted. A held instalment is almost always waiting on one of those three, and the office to ask is the Joint Director (Academic).

How winners are picked

Selection process

There is no separate selection for the scholarship. Admission to the programme is the selection, so the merit rule that matters is the admission merit rule.

Master's candidates are ranked on the entrance examination and counselling, with ties broken by the previous year's result and then by the date of passing the degree, per the admission rules. The same page ranks doctoral candidates on the entrance paper alone, ties broken by the marks in the qualifying examination and then by date of birth, the older candidate ranking higher. In-service doctoral admission is decided on the written examination merit, with one seat offered in each discipline.

The direct-admission route for national-level fellowship holders is the exception, and it runs on an interview before a selection committee constituted by the institute, judged on academic credentials, the validity of the fellowship and interview performance, per the 12 August 2026 notice. Candidates entering that way carry their own money in and are outside the Institute Scholarship.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Four events terminate the award, and the last of them can arrive without notice: the student ceasing to be on the rolls, the study being completed including submission of the thesis, the sanction expiring, and, in exceptional circumstances, the Joint Director finding the scholar guilty of unbecoming conduct, with or without notice. Where a student's name is struck off the rolls for any reason, any amount due, sanctioned or not, is not paid.

Attendance is a live condition rather than a formality. The scholarship rules require a minimum of 75% separately in theory and practical in each course, cap condonation at 5% and allow it only for authorised absence under official directives or serious illness, with a further relaxation of up to 15 days a semester for listed sports, NCC and blood-donation absences. A student short on attendance cannot sit the examination, which in turn breaks the 65% renewal test.

Leave is finite. Scholars get 8 days of casual leave that cannot be clubbed with other leave, medical leave up to 10 days in an academic year on a valid certificate, and in exceptional cases up to three months of medical leave without scholarship across the entire programme. Doctoral scholars get 10 days of vacation once course work is done and the synopsis is submitted. Maternity leave with scholarship runs to a maximum of three months and only for a first or second child, the wording NDRI prints in both its scholarship rules and its academic rules and regulations; the bold sub-heading sitting above that clause on the scholarships page says six months, a period the academic regulations nowhere repeat. Any leave extends the minimum duration of the degree, but the academic rules state the scholarship is not extended beyond the prescribed duration for any kind of leave taken.

Two money rules catch students out. Fees cannot be adjusted against the scholarship and non-receipt of the scholarship is not a valid reason for paying fees late, and the institute reserves the right to recover dues from the fellowship amount, per the fee structure page. Separately, since the last month's money waits on thesis submission, the publication condition on doctoral submission has a cash consequence: a Ph.D. student must have a research paper accepted or published in a journal rated above 6 on the NAAS scale, above 4.0 for social science disciplines, or a patent filed, before the loose-bound thesis goes in.

Get help

Contact

Scholarship questions belong with the academic office rather than the admissions desk. The Joint Director (Academic) at ICAR-NDRI is Dr A.K. Singh, reachable at jda.ndri@icar.org.in and on +91-184-2259007 or +91-184-2254751, per the institute's contact directory. Post goes to ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Deemed University, Karnal (Haryana) 132001, the address on the institute's own admission notice.

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.

Explore more

Related scholarships

References

Sources