ICAR 2025 Counselling opens on September 2; official cites NTA result data, extension requests for delay

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) will open applications for ICAR counselling 2025 for admission to undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD programmes in different disciplines of agriculture and allied sciences on September 2, as per official sources.

The ICAR 2025 counselling registration will remain open for nearly 6 days. The ICAR merit list will be published within 2-3 days after the closure of the application window.

As per the official statement, the ICAR counselling for all three levels - UG, PG, and PhD - will begin in the third week of September. A detailed schedule for the admission will be published soon on the official website, icaradmission.in.

ICAR Counselling 2025: Eligibility

Only candidates who fulfil the eligibility criteria will be qualified for admission in the participating colleges.

UG Admission - Candidates who appeared and qualified in the Common University Entrance Test (CUET UG 2025) entrance test for the UG agriculture courses will be eligible for admission. The CUET UG exam was held in May-June and the results were declared on July 4.

Admission to around 74 agricultural universities and institutes will be done through the ICAR CUET UG counselling 2025.

PG, PhD Admission - For PG and PhD courses, candidates should have a valid score in All India Entrance Examination for Admission (AIEEA-PG) and All India Competitive Examination – Junior Research Fellowship / Senior Research Fellowship (AICE-JRF/SRF-PhD). The entrance exams for PG and doctoral programmes were held on July 3 and the results were announced on August 12.

As per the NTA result data, a total of 27,384 candidates registered for AIEEA PG and 25,338 appeared. Moreover, a total of 11,116 aspirants applied for AICE JRF/SRF (PhD) out of which 9,940 took the exam.

Also read ICAR stipend hikes 21 months late; ‘financially distressed’ agriculture researchers seek legal recourse

Why ICAR counselling was delayed?

The ICAR counselling has not been conducted for the last 2-3 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The admission schedule got pushed further and even last year, the process continued till February.

“So this year too we decided to wait for a while but had planned to have July 31 as the cut off date for the admission process. However, it took a while for the result data to come from the National Testing Agency (NTA). Also, several students, colleges and universities kept asking for an extension. But we decided to start anyway. But from next year we will adhere to July 31 as the cut-off date. In a country like ours, we have to consider all state universities," said an ICAR official.

"If we could have a uniform admission schedule for the entire country it would be the best possible situation. We are speaking to vice-chancellors and are positive that it can happen some time in the future," he added.