ASRB NET 2026: No Notification Yet — Fisheries Prep Guide

If you hold a Master’s degree in fisheries science and dream of becoming a lecturer, assistant professor, or ICAR scientist, the ASRB NET and ARS examinations are the two doors that matter most. But here is the honest position on 11 November 2026: the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) has not yet released the detailed notification for the Combined NET, ARS, SMS (T-6) & STO (T-6) Examination 2026 — even though its own tentative schedule said the notification would come in August 2026 and the preliminary exam would be held in November 2026. Do not trust any website that is already circulating 2026 application dates or last dates. As of today, no such dates exist on the official ASRB website, asrb.gov.in.

This guide tells you exactly where things stand, what the exam looks like based on the last full notification (2025), which six fisheries disciplines you can appear in, and how to prepare now so that you are ready the day the notification actually drops.

ASRB NET/ARS 2026: where things stand on 11 November 2026

ASRB published a one-page “Schedule of Examination-2026” on 31 December 2025. It lists three tentative milestones and nothing else — no application window, no last date, no exact exam dates:

Milestone	Tentative schedule (31 Dec 2025)	Status on 11 Nov 2026
Notification release	August 2026	Not released — August has passed with no notification
Combined CBT (NET 2026 & Prelims for ARS, SMS, STO)	November 2026	Not possible as scheduled — no notification, no applications, no admit cards yet
Combined Mains (Descriptive) for ARS, SMS & STO	March 2027	Still the stated plan — depends on the revised prelims date

We checked the ASRB homepage (asrb.gov.in), its Vacancy Notification page, and its Examination Notifications page on 11 November 2026. The only 2026 advertisement listed anywhere is Advt. No. 01/2026 for Research Management Positions — and that closed on 23 October 2026. The most recent full combined-exam notification on the site is still the 2025 one. In short: the November 2026 prelims date in the tentative schedule cannot hold, because in 2025 candidates got roughly three and a half months between the notification (24 February 2025) and the CBT (2–4 September 2025). ASRB will have to publish a revised schedule when the notification finally appears.

What this means for you: keep preparing, but do not pay anyone who claims to sell you a 2026 application form, admit card, or “confirmed” exam date. There is no application link for NET/ARS 2026 anywhere yet. When it opens, it will be on asrb.gov.in.

What are ASRB NET and ARS?

ASRB — the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board, under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare — runs one combined examination that serves two different career goals:

NET (National Eligibility Test): qualifying the NET makes you eligible to apply for Lecturer / Assistant Professor posts in State Agricultural Universities and other agricultural universities. NET by itself is an eligibility test — it does not give you a job, but without it you cannot apply for those teaching posts.
ARS (Agricultural Research Service): this is a direct recruitment examination for Scientist posts in ICAR institutes. If you clear the Prelims, Mains and interview, you join ICAR as a scientist — the research career in fisheries institutes such as CIFE, CMFRI, CIFA, CIBA, CIFT and CIFRI.
SMS (T-6) and STO (T-6): Subject Matter Specialist and Senior Technical Officer posts, recruited through the same combined examination. These matter less for most fisheries postgraduates, but they run on the same notification and the same prelims paper.

You can apply for NET only, for ARS/SMS/STO, or for NET along with any combination of the others — the fee differs for each option (see the fee table below, from the 2025 notification).

The six fisheries disciplines — codes 34 to 39

Fisheries graduates do not appear in a single generic paper. ASRB lists six separate fisheries disciplines, each with its own paper and its own eligibility qualifications, in Annexure-VI of the notification:

Code	Discipline	Who it is for
34	Aquaculture	M.F.Sc. / M.Sc. in Aquaculture and allied aquaculture subjects
35	Fisheries Resource Management	Master’s in Fisheries Resource Management / Aquatic Environment Management and allied subjects
36	Fish Processing Technology	Master’s in Fish Processing Technology / Fish Harvest & Processing and allied subjects
37	Fish Nutrition	Master’s in Fish Nutrition and allied subjects
38	Fish Health	Master’s in Fish Health / Aquatic Animal Health and allied subjects
39	Fish Genetics & Breeding	Master’s in Fish Genetics & Breeding / Fish Biotechnology and allied subjects

The exact qualifying degrees for each discipline are prescribed discipline-wise in Annexure-VI of the official notification and in the official discipline-wise ARS/NET syllabus on asrb.gov.in — check your own degree against that list before you apply, because a wrong discipline choice can disqualify your candidature. The general NET rule, from the 2025 notification, is a Master’s degree or equivalent in the concerned discipline, completed on or before the cut-off date the notification specifies (30 September 2025 in the 2025 cycle), from a recognised Indian or foreign university.

Exam pattern: NET

The NET is a single computer-based paper — no Mains, no interview:

Feature	NET pattern (2025 notification)
Paper	One CBT paper, 150 objective MCQs
Marks	150 marks (1 mark per question)
Duration	2 hours
Language	Bilingual — Hindi and English
Negative marking	1/3 mark deducted for each wrong answer; no rounding of fractions
Standard	Master’s-degree level in the discipline
Minimum qualifying marks	UR 75.0 (50%) · EWS/OBC 67.5 (45%) · SC/ST/PwBD 60.0 (40%)

There is no upper age limit for NET — you must simply have attained 21 years of age as on 1 January of the exam year (1 January 2025 in the 2025 cycle). That makes NET the most accessible of all ICAR examinations: a 40-year-old M.F.Sc. holder can still qualify and apply for teaching posts.

Exam pattern: ARS

ARS is a three-stage examination, and only the first stage is shared with NET:

Stage	Pattern (2025 notification)
1. Preliminary Exam (CBT)	One paper, 150 MCQs, 150 marks, 2 hours, bilingual; 1/3 negative marking. Qualifying only — marks are NOT counted for final selection. Minimum qualifying: UR 67.5 (45%), EWS/OBC 60.0 (40%), SC/ST/PwBD 52.5 (35%). Qualifiers are called for Mains in a 1:15 ratio, category-wise per post.
2. Mains (Descriptive)	One paper, 300 marks, 3 hours: 25 questions × 5 marks (about 50 words each), 10 questions × 10 marks (about 100 words each), 5 questions × 15 marks (about 150 words each). Answerable in English or Hindi, in the medium chosen in the application form.
3. Personal Interview	45 marks. Mains qualifiers are called for interview in a 1:3 ratio.

ARS age limit (2025 cycle): you must have attained 21 years but not have attained 32 years as on 1 August 2025, with relaxations of 5 years for SC/ST, 3 years for OBC, 10 years for PwBD, plus provisions for Ph.D. holders, ICAR in-service candidates (under 45), Agricultural University in-service candidates (under 35) and ex-servicemen. The 2026 notification will carry its own reference dates — do not assume the 2025 dates will repeat exactly.

Application fee (2025 cycle — 2026 fees will be in the new notification)

Option	UR	EWS / OBC	SC / ST / PwBD / Women / Transgender
NET only	₹1,000	₹500	₹250
ARS / SMS / STO, or any combination of those	₹1,000	₹800	Nil
NET along with any combination of ARS / SMS / STO	₹2,000	₹1,300	₹250

These are the 2025 figures, given here so you can budget and understand the structure. The 2026 fee will be confirmed only in the 2026 notification.

How to prepare while you wait

The delay is frustrating, but it is also preparation time that your competitors may waste. Here is a practical plan:

Fix your discipline first. Read the official discipline-wise syllabus for your code (34–39) on asrb.gov.in — the 132-page “Discipline-wise ARS/NET Syllabus” (Annexure-II). Your entire preparation follows from that document, not from generic agriculture books.
Master the 2025 pattern. NET is 150 MCQs in 2 hours at Master’s level with 1/3 negative marking — speed and accuracy matter equally. Practise full-length timed papers, and treat every wrong answer as costing you 1.33 marks, not one.
Build ARS Mains writing practice now. The descriptive paper demands 25 short answers (about 50 words), 10 medium answers (about 100 words) and 5 long answers (about 150 words) in 3 hours. Most fisheries postgraduates have never written under that structure — start now, because it cannot be crammed in a week.
Cover the fundamentals across your discipline. For Aquaculture, that means breeding and seed production, nutrition and feed formulation, water quality, health management and farm economics. For Fisheries Resource Management, it means stock assessment, population dynamics, fishing gear and craft, and fisheries policy. Use your M.F.Sc. course material as the spine and the syllabus as the checklist.
Check asrb.gov.in once a week. The notification will appear under Examination → Notifications on asrb.gov.in. Do not rely on job portals — several of them predicted an August 2026 notification that never arrived.
Keep your documents ready. Master’s degree certificate and mark sheets, category certificate if applicable, a valid photo ID, and a scanned photograph and signature in the format ASRB specifies. In 2025 the application window was only about a month (22 April to 21 May) — when the 2026 window opens, it may be equally short.

A note on the other ASRB advertisement of 2026

The only other ASRB recruitment of 2026, Advt. No. 01/2026 dated 13 August 2026, advertised 48 Research Management Positions — including Director of ICAR-Central Institute for Coldwater Fisheries Research (Bhimtal), Director of ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (Chennai), and Joint Director of ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education (Mumbai), all at Research Level-14 (₹1,44,200–₹2,18,200). That window closed on 23 October 2026 at 5:00 PM, so those posts are no longer open. We mention them only so that nobody mistakes that advertisement for the NET/ARS notification — they are different examinations.

Frequently asked questions

Has the ASRB NET 2026 notification been released?
No. As of 11 November 2026, ASRB has published only the tentative 2026 schedule. No detailed notification, application window, last date or exact prelims date exists on asrb.gov.in.

When will the ASRB NET 2026 exam be held?
Unknown. The tentative schedule said November 2026 for the prelims CBT and March 2027 for the Mains, but with no notification by 11 November, the November date cannot hold. Watch asrb.gov.in for the revised schedule.

Which fisheries subjects can I choose?
Six disciplines: Aquaculture (34), Fisheries Resource Management (35), Fish Processing Technology (36), Fish Nutrition (37), Fish Health (38), and Fish Genetics & Breeding (39). Choose the one matching your Master’s degree.

Is there an upper age limit for NET?
No — in the 2025 cycle there was no upper age limit for NET, only a minimum of 21 years as on 1 January 2025. ARS had an upper limit of 32 years (as on 1 August 2025) with relaxations.

Can I apply for both NET and ARS?
Yes. In 2025 the combined fee for NET along with ARS/SMS/STO was ₹2,000 for UR, ₹1,300 for EWS/OBC and ₹250 for SC/ST/PwBD/Women/Transgender candidates. The 2026 fee will be in the new notification.

Where do I apply when the notification comes?
On the ASRB website, asrb.gov.in, under Examination → Notifications. Never pay an agent or a third-party site for the form.