SylbV01-00-00. pmd

General Introduction
Horticulture plays a pivotal role in the food and livelihood security of India. Though
horticulture crops occupy only 8.5 per cent of areable land, they contribute 25.5 per cent of
the Agriculture GDP. Plantation crops especially tea, coffee and rubber crops just occupying
0.95 per cent to of cropped area have stake of 15.1 per cent of the total expert earnings of
agricultural produce. Therefore, the country has considered horticultural and plantation
sector as the growth engine of Agricultural economy. It is important to mention here that
the horticultural crop production in the country surpassed food production for the first
time during 2013–14. The trend has been continuing and production for the year 2017–18
has been in order of 321 million tones. Over last decades, the area under horticultural
crops grew by about 3 per cent per annum with increase in annual production by 5.4 per
cent and the share of horticulture output in agriculture being more than 33 per cent.
Coming to the genesis and development of horticultural education in the country it
dates back to mid 1930’s where horticulture was considered as a part of Economic Botany
in the College of Agriculture, Pune. It became independent department, subsequently, in
several SAU’s. At present, the discipline of horticulture has been further bifurcated upto
five departments in may agri-horticultural universities in the country.
The BSMA constituted by the ICAR vide OO. No.F.No.13(1)/2007-EQR dated January
14, 2008 under Chairmanship of Dr K.V. Peter, Former Vice-Chancellor, formulated the
common PG Syllabus for Horticulture discipline for the first time and recommended for
implementation of the same uniformly throughout the country. The document was published
by the ICAR during April 2009. The said committee, considered four discipline in horticulture
science, viz., Fruit Science, Vegetable Science, Floriculture and Landscape Architecture
and Plantation, Spices, Medicinal and Aromatic Crops, instead of one composite discipline,
viz., Horticulture.
The ICAR in its O.O.F.No.7/6/2017 EQR dt: 04.04.2018 has constituted 19 BSMA
Committees based on the National Core Group recommendations to look into various issues
related to PG Programmes with the following terms of reference.
1. Development of Academic Regulations for Master and Ph.D. program
2. Refining names and curricula of Master’s and Ph.D. disciplines for uniformity.
3. Revision of syllabi for courses and Master’s and Ph.D. degree programmes.