The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi is the apex body for co-ordinating, guiding and managing research and education in agriculture, horticulture, fisheries and animal sciences in India. ICAR governs 111 ICAR institutes and 71 Central/State Agricultural Universities (CAU/SAU) spread across the country which is one of the largest national agricultural systems in the world. ICAR announces 15 National Awards every year in commemoration with its Foundation Day (16-7-2022) to recognize outstanding performance by the (CAUs/SAUs), ICAR institutes, individual scientists and farmers. Among them, Sardar Patel Outstanding ICAR Institution Award is conferred on the best performing University/Institution to provide incentive for outstanding University performance and to promote a sense of institutional pride.
   The award applications are evaluated based on the allocation of resources, principal outputs, scientific/technological/socio-economic potential and impacts of the outputs, student performance at National tests, placement of students, student Awards/Recognition at National level, Resource mobilization and utilization efficiency, staff position, extent and quality of functional interaction with other institutions, Faculty Awards and Recognitions at National and International level and significant publications.
   For the year 2021, ICAR has conferred Sardar Patel Outstanding ICAR Institution Award to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore based on its outstanding performance in teaching, research and extension activities. TNAU students have outperformed other SAU’s by securing 374 national level fellowships during the assessment period. TNAU remained at the top among the 71 CAU/SAUs in attracting the students for higher education. In research, TNAU has released 74 improved crop varieties and published around 2000 SCOPUS index scientific papers.
   TNAU excelled in its outreach activities even during the pandemic period by delivering technologies to about 6 lakh farmers. All these efforts have enabled TNAU to climb up in the ICAR ranking ladder and all in aggregation empowered TNAU to clinch this prestigious award of ICAR.