Exam Blueprint, Eligibility, Fellowship and Scoring Strategy
This chapter sets out the ICAR All India Competitive Examination for JRF/SRF (Ph.D.) as described in the 2026 Information Bulletin: the paper structure, the 19 core groups, who may apply, what the fellowship pays, and how the +4/-1 scoring should shape your attempt plan. Every later chapter fits into this blueprint, so read it first and return to it when choosing where to spend your study hours.
KarmSakha preparation topics covered
- Purpose and limits of the AICE-JRF/SRF (Ph.D.) examination
- Three-part paper structure and the 480-mark scheme
- 19 core groups, 72 subjects and how Parts B and C are fixed
- Minimum OGPA and percentage by grading scale
- Degree type, completion date and age conditions
- Seats, reservation, counselling and fellowship terms
- Application fee, answer-key challenge and CBT conduct rules
- Expected-value reasoning for guessing and time budgeting
- Tie-break order for equal scores
What AICE-JRF/SRF (Ph.D.) Is and Is Not
The All India Competitive Examination (AICE) for JRF/SRF (Ph.D.) is the single gateway through which the Indian Council of Agricultural Research fills its quota of doctoral seats in agricultural universities and awards its Junior and Senior Research Fellowships. The National Testing Agency conducts the test for ICAR, which sits under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. Everything here reflects the 2026 Information Bulletin, which describes the ICAR-AU system as 74 agricultural universities: 63 state universities, four ICAR deemed universities (IARI, IVRI, NDRI and CIFE), three central agricultural universities and four central universities with a faculty of agriculture.
Two ideas in the bulletin shape how you should think about the exam. First, admission and fellowship are separate outcomes. Admission is offered to candidates in merit order as seats allow; the fellowship goes to a limited number of the best-ranked candidates in each subject, and everyone else who qualifies for counselling can still be admitted to the Ph.D. programme without it. Second, there is no back door: the bulletin states that no direct nomination to a doctoral programme exists under this scheme without qualifying in this examination. A rank, not a recommendation, decides where you go and whether you are paid.
It is equally important to know what this book and this examination are not. The ICAR postgraduate entrance, AIEEA (PG), is a different paper for a different admission and is not covered here. The Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board's tests and state-university Ph.D. entrances are also separate. A coaching advertisement for 'ICAR NET' is describing this examination only if its pattern table says 120 questions, 480 marks and two hours.
Paper Structure and Marking Scheme
The test is one paper of two hours delivered as a LAN-based computer-based test, in English only. It contains 120 multiple-choice questions, each with four options and exactly one correct or most appropriate answer. Every question carries four marks: a correct response earns +4, an incorrect response costs one mark, and an unattempted question scores zero. The maximum is therefore 120 x 4 = 480 marks. This book calls the three sub-tests Parts A, B and C; the bulletin uses 'Part' and 'Section' interchangeably.
Part A has 20 questions worth 80 marks and is identical for all 72 subjects. The bulletin describes it as testing awareness of the environment and its application to society, drawing on general knowledge in agriculture, animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries and allied sciences, including current events and matters of everyday observation. No unit-wise syllabus exists for Part A, which is why Chapters 2 and 3 of this book build a fact base instead of covering a syllabus. Part B has 50 questions worth 200 marks drawn from the core group that contains your subject. Part C has 50 questions worth 200 marks from the specialised subject you opted for. Parts B and C together carry 400 of the 480 marks (83.3 per cent), so Part A is one-sixth of the paper but the only portion common to candidates of all 72 subjects, which makes it the one place where your preparation is shared with the whole pool.
| Part | Content | Questions | Marks per question | Maximum marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | General knowledge and reasoning ability: agriculture and allied sciences, current events, everyday observation (common to all 72 subjects) | 20 | 4 | 80 |
| B | Core group containing the opted subject (Table 1 of the bulletin) | 50 | 4 | 200 |
| C | Opted specialised subject (master's-level subject) | 50 | 4 | 200 |
| Total | Single paper, 120 minutes, English only | 120 | 4 | 480 |
Core Groups and Subjects: How Parts B and C Are Chosen
When you apply you choose one subject of specialisation from the list in the bulletin, and that single choice fixes both Part B and Part C. The 72 examination subjects are arranged in 19 core groups. Part B asks 50 questions from the core group that contains your subject, so you are tested on the neighbouring subjects of your group as well as your own. Part C then goes deep into your own subject.
Work through the case of Agronomy, which is subject 16.1 in Core Group 16, Natural Resource Management-II. An Agronomy candidate's Part B draws on all four subjects of that group: Agronomy, Soil Sciences, Agricultural Chemicals, and Water Science and Technology. Part C then consists of 50 Agronomy questions. The practical consequence is that a candidate's second-best subject in the group is not optional reading; it is examined directly in Part B. Footnotes in the bulletin widen some rows for admission, for example Forestry includes Silviculture and Agroforestry, and Agricultural Extension Education includes Veterinary Extension (M.V.Sc.) and Fisheries Extension (M.F.Sc.).
| Core group | Name | No. | Subjects |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Crop Sciences-I | 3 | Genetics and Plant Breeding; Seed Science and Technology; Plant Genetic Resources |
| 02 | Crop Sciences-II | 4 | Plant Pathology; Nematology; Entomology; Sericulture |
| 03 | Crop Sciences-III | 4 | Biochemistry; Plant Physiology; Molecular Biology and Biotechnology; Microbiology |
| 04 | Horticulture | 5 | Vegetable, Fruit, Floriculture, Plantation-Spices-Medicinal-Aromatic, Post Harvest |
| 05 | Veterinary and Animal Sciences-I | 5 | Animal Genetics, Animal Nutrition, Livestock Production, Livestock Products Technology, Poultry |
| 06 | Veterinary and Animal Sciences-II | 4 | Parasitology, Public Health, Microbiology, Pathology |
| 07 | Veterinary and Animal Sciences-III | 5 | Medicine, Pharmacology, Reproduction, Surgery, Anatomy |
| 08 | Veterinary and Animal Sciences-IV | 3 | Physiology, Biochemistry, Biotechnology |
| 09 | Dairy Science, Dairy Technology and Food Technology | 5 | Dairy Chemistry, Food Processing, Dairy Microbiology, Dairy Technology, Dairy Engineering |
| 10 | Agricultural Engineering and Technology | 5 | Farm Machinery, Soil and Water Conservation, Processing, Renewable Energy, Irrigation and Drainage |
| 11 | Community Science (formerly Home Science) | 5 | Resource Management, Apparel, Human Development, Food and Nutrition, Extension |
| 12 | Fishery Science-I | 4 | Resource Management, Processing, Fishing Technology, Aquatic Environment |
| 13 | Fishery Science-II | 3 | Aquaculture, Animal Health, Nutrition and Feed |
| 14 | Fishery Sciences-III | 3 | Genetics, Biotechnology, Physiology and Biochemistry |
| 15 | Natural Resource Management-I | 4 | Forestry; Agricultural Meteorology; Agricultural Physics; Environmental Science |
| 16 | Natural Resource Management-II | 4 | Agronomy; Soil Sciences; Agricultural Chemicals; Water Science and Technology |
| 17 | Agricultural Economics and Agri-Business Management | 2 | Agricultural Economics; Agri-business Management |
| 18 | Agricultural Extension | 1 | Agricultural Extension Education |
| 19 | Agricultural Statistics | 3 | Agricultural Statistics; Bioinformatics; Computer Application |
Eligibility: Degree, Marks, Age and Common Disqualifiers
The basic condition is that you are an Indian national with a master's degree in a subject that the bulletin lists as eligible for your chosen specialisation, with at least the minimum OGPA or percentage in Table 2. The threshold depends on the grading scale of your university and on your category: on a 10-point scale it is 6.50 for General, OBC (non-creamy layer), UPS and EWS candidates and 5.50 for SC, ST, PwBD and Third Gender candidates; where only marks are awarded it is 60 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. The table below lists every scale. Two bulletin notes decide many rejections: OGPA and percentage are not interchangeable, and there is no rounding, so 49.99 per cent is not 50 per cent.
The degree history is checked as strictly as the marks. Admission through this route requires a four-year bachelor's degree (10+2+4, such as B.Sc. Agriculture (Hons.), B.Tech. or B.F.Sc.), a five or five-and-a-half-year B.V.Sc. and A.H., or the 10+6 B.Sc. Agriculture, followed by a two-year master's degree with thesis from a publicly funded or government institution. Three-year bachelor's degrees are not considered except in a few courses at IARI and NDRI, where the deemed university's own criteria prevail. Five-year integrated M.Sc. holders are not eligible. Equivalence of other degrees is decided by the admitting university.
Timing rules catch strong candidates who assume the result date is the deadline. You must have met every degree-completion requirement on 31 July 2026, about four weeks after the written test. If you hold no degree or provisional certificate yet, you need a Registrar's certificate confirming that on that date you had fulfilled all requirements, including thesis submission and viva-voce, and stating your final OGPA or percentage. Minimum age is 20 years as on 31 August 2026, with no relaxation.
| Grading scale of the master's degree | General, OBC (NCL), UPS, EWS | SC, ST, PwBD, Third Gender |
|---|---|---|
| 10-point OGPA | 6.50 | 5.50 |
| 9-point OGPA | 5.85 | 4.95 |
| 8-point OGPA | 5.20 | 4.40 |
| 7-point OGPA | 4.55 | 3.85 |
| 6-point OGPA | 3.90 | 3.30 |
| 5-point OGPA | 3.25 | 2.75 |
| 4-point OGPA | 2.60 | 2.20 |
| Percentage of marks (100-point) | 60 | 50 |
Seats, Reservation, Counselling and the Fellowship
Under the ICAR-AU system, admissions are made to 30 per cent of the seats in participating agricultural universities, and to 100 per cent of the seats at Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University (Pusa), Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University (Jhansi) and the ICAR deemed universities IVRI, IARI, CIFE and NDRI. Not more than 40 per cent of the candidates admitted in a university, subject and category may come from any one state. The bulletin reports 2,278 ICAR all-India-quota Ph.D. seats in 2025-26; the 2026-27 list is tentative until counselling, so treat seat numbers as indicative.
Reservation works at two levels. For fellowship and seats, 15 per cent are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 7.5 per cent for Scheduled Tribes, interchangeable between the two when a category cannot fill its seats. Five per cent are reserved horizontally for persons with benchmark disability, and 2 per cent horizontally for candidates from the remote and under-privileged states and territories listed in the bulletin (UPS). EWS and OBC (NCL) candidates have reservation in admission as notified by ICAR, but the bulletin states there is no reservation of the JRF/SRF award itself for EWS, OBC (NCL) or UPS candidates; they receive it on overall merit.
Merit lists are prepared by ICAR separately for each major subject, and the number of fellowships in a subject depends on the average number of candidates who actually appeared in it in the preceding three years, not on the seat count. The fellowship is awarded only after online counselling, only for admission in the listed agricultural universities, and only if you take up the seat in the same academic session. It cannot be carried to a later year, and if you leave the programme it is not passed to the next candidate in rank.
| Fellowship term | As stated in the 2026 bulletin |
|---|---|
| Stipend, years 1 and 2 (JRF) | Rs 37,000 per month |
| Stipend, year 3 (SRF) | Rs 42,000 per month |
| Contingent grant | Rs 10,000 per year; not more than 50 per cent on books |
| Normal duration | Three years |
| Renewal condition | OGPA/CGPA of at least 7.00 out of 10 each year (6.50 for SC, ST, PwBD) |
| In-service candidates on leave salary | Fellowship limited to Rs 3,000 per month, plus contingency |
| Other fellowships | Not allowed alongside; an existing one must be surrendered |
| Change of subject or university after admission | Not entertained |
Application, Fee, Answer-Key Challenge and CBT Rules
The 2026 bulletin allowed a month for online application and a two-day correction window, with the examination on Saturday, 4 July 2026 (see the table). Some portals reported an extension of the application deadline; the bulletin itself states none, so this book follows the bulletin. Results were reported on 30 August 2026, with 10,417 candidates appearing in this examination according to a news report. Applicants choose four cities from the Annexure-I list (the bulletin text says 89 cities, though the annexure itself runs to 122 entries) and upload no certificates except category or PwBD ones; other documents are verified at admission.
