There is a lot of confusion amoung students and parents who want to pursue B.Sc (Agriculture) whether to join in an ICAR Recognized/Approved University or Non ICAR University.
For those students here is the complete explanation about ICAR Colleges / Universities and Non ICAR Universities.
What is ICAR ?
ICAR stands for Indian Council of Agricultural Research is a society which was established in 1860 whose primary objective is carrying research activities of Agriculture and agriculture allied subjects such as Horticulture, Sericulture, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry etc..,.
ICAR has NO AUTHORITY to give RECOGNITION or APPROVAL for any University/College/Institution to Open/Start/Close of B.Sc (Agriculture) or any other course, as ICAR is a NON STATUTORY BODY.
Let us understand what is meant by a Statutory Body
For many professional courses there will be a respective Statutory Body, which provides permissions to start that course in any college/university/institute after an inspection is conducted by the statutory body.
For example MCI (Medical Council of India) is a statutory body for MBBS course. If any College/University/Institute wants to start MBBS course, they need to take approval from MCI. MCI will conduct an inspection and check whether the institute is having all the facilities, infrastructure, labs etc.., which are required to run MBBS course, post which they will provide the approval. If any college/university/institute is running MBBS course without the approval of MCI, the certificate of that college wont be valid.
In the same way DCI (Dental Council of India) is a statutory body for BDS/MDS. PCI (Pharmacy Council of India) is a statutory body for B.Pharmacy, Pharma D, M Pharmacy.
But in the case of B.Sc (Agriculture) there is NO STATUTORY BODY. Students and parents are mistaken that ICAR is a statutory body, but the fact is ICAR is a NON STATUTORY BODY. Recently ICAR released a public notice stating the same thing.
ICAR Public Notice stating that it is a NON STATUTORY BODY link :-https://icar.org.in/files/Edn7(7)2017-EQR%20dated05.09.2017%20(Public%20Notice).pdf
Hence there are NO ICAR RECOGNIZED or ICAR APPROVED COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES. Agriculture is a state subject and permissions to run B.Sc (Agriculture) course should be given by concerned State Government.
ICAR only provides ACCREDITATION to only State Government Agricultural Universities and accreditation is NOT MANDATORY.