ICAR Accreditation is Voluntary: ICAR

Not too long ago, my wife Swapna and I visited Osmania University (OU) for admission into the Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) offered by the Prof G Rami Reddy Center for Distance Education (PGRRCDE). After getting the clearance from the admissions team at PGRRCDE, we were asked to get an equivalency certificate from the Office of the Registrar at OU.

It is one of those routine money making processes for the university where they charge a fee of Rs 2000 (yes, I know it is a ripoff but the university needs money to sustain) and give you a piece of paper that says your degree (from other state/country) is equivalent to a degree issued by OU and hence you are permitted to be admitted into the course of your choice at OU (assuming all other requirements are met).

After we visited the Academic section inside the administrative building, a short tempered woman, who happens to be an assistant in the Transfers section looked at the documents and asked “You studied B.Sc Agriculture?” on replying “Yes”, the woman quickly retorted with “How can your B.Sc Agriculture degree be valid without ICAR accreditation?”

We proceeded to ask her to give it to us in writing and she went on the defensive and said “It is your job to go to court and only then we can give an official response”. This is a total LIE. If we submit a question, we are entitled to a response from the university/govt authority. We can also choose to file an RTI.

Anyway, we spoke to the Section Superintendent that came after a while. This man was far more empathetic to our case and said that we should allow him a few days to get back to him. We went back and decided to wait. After a week, when we called him, he said “Find some official information from any source such as UGC/ICAR or any other body that says the degree is valid and we will proceed with admission”.

We were now back to square one, we had to start the lengthy process of finding something from these authorities such as UGC/ICAR. We started with our trusted friend Google. After reaching some Quora pages with answers that were inconclusive, we moved our search process to Perplexity AI. This is like Google on steroids.

ICAR is Optional

Moving to Perplexity for my search was a smart move. Perplexity went to some obscure website called Career Point University and pointed us to some RTIs that said ICAR is optional. This university probably did this to show that their own B.Sc agriculture university degree is valid but regardless of that, it sparked an idea in my mind.

Why can’t I file an RTI with ICAR?

Prithvi’s thoughts

RTI was a right of mine as a citizen of India and I believed that I had as much of a right as the next person to file for an RTI.

Fortunately, I had already filed an RTI in the past and the RTI process for Central Government Agencies is an extremely simple purely online process.

I went to the website and spent 2 hours:

1. Crafting RTIs
2. Choosing the right departments
3. Filing the RTI requests.

After a wait and watch game for 30 days (I believe 30 days is the maximum allowable time for a department to reply to an RTI and they usually choose to reply on the last day). I got a couple of responses among which there was one that was pure gold.

This is what we needed. A written document that said “ICAR is optional and B.Sc Agriculture degrees are valid without ICAR also”.

What does this mean for B.Sc Agriculture Students?

1. You can undertake any future courses such as MBA, PGDBM, LLB etc for which a degree is a pre-requisite like any degree student without any hinderance.
2. A university does not need ICAR accreditation to offer a B.Sc Agriculture degree.
3. If you are ever questioned by anyone regarding validity of your degrees, you can file an RTI as it is your constitutionally afforded right.
4. You can use a copy of the RTI enclosed as written evidence of ICAR saying that “ICAR accreditation is voluntary.”

Now, there is no stopping anyone from preventing students of B.Sc Agriculture to undertake any other degrees. Go after your dreams!

Warmly,

Prithvi & Swapna

Context: My wife Swapna studied at a university called Rai Technology University (RTU) on the outskirts of Bangalore. The university is recognized by UGC but did not have the ICAR accreditation. This entire process of 33 days was undertaken to establish that ICAR is optional.

TLDR: Osmania University officials denied admission into a PG course citing ICAR is a mandatory requirement for any B.Sc Agriculture degree awarded by any university in the country. We file an RTI with ICAR itself and get a response in writing that clearly states “ICAR accreditation is a purely voluntary process”.

Links to the RTI

1. ICAR is a Purely Voluntary Process – RTI ICARH/R/E/24/00047