C-DAC's Post Graduate Diploma courses are full-time courses of 900 hours (24 weeks). The list of PG Diploma courses being offered in February 2025 along with their eligibility criteria and fees is given in Table 1.

Mode of Delivery of PG Diploma Courses in the February 2025 Batch

• PG-DAC, PG-DBDA and PG-DAI will be delivered in FULLY ONLINE OR FULLY PHYSICAL mode depending on the centre offering these courses.
• PG-DESD, PG-DITISS, PG-DMC, PG-DIoT, PG-DVLSI, PG-DASSD, PG-DUASP, PG-DFBD and PG-DHPCSA will be delivered in fully PHYSICAL mode at all the training centres offering these courses.
• PG-DRAT and PG-DCSF will be delivered in fully ONLINE mode at all the training centres offering these courses.

For online courses, students are required to have laptops/PCs with high-speed uninterrupted internet connection, webcam and microphone to effectively participate in the course from their homes or personal places. It is not advisable to join the online classes from mobile phones.

Minimum Eligibility Criteria Common for all the PG Diploma Courses of C-DAC

• Graduate in Engineering or Technology (10+2+4 or 10+3+3 years) in IT / Computer Science / Electronics / Telecommunications / Electrical / Instrumentation.

OR

• MSc/MS (10+2+3+2 years) in Computer Science, IT, Electronics.

In addition to the common eligibility criteria given above, candidates with the course-specific qualifications mentioned in Table 1 are ALSO ELIGIBLE for the particular courses. Minimum percentage of marks required in the qualifying examination is also stated in Table 1. The minimum percentage of marks will be considered as per the norms of the university from where the candidate has graduated.

Table 1: C-DAC's PG Diploma courses and their eligibility criteria.

* For any specific engineering or postgraduate courses that are not mentioned in Table 1, candidates may check their course eligibility by emailing their certificates and mark-sheets to actssupport@cdac.in before the last date of C-CAT application.

For the online courses, laptop/PC configuration, and hardware, software and network specifications required are given in Section 18 of this Admission Booklet.

There is no age restriction for admission to C-DAC’s PG Diploma courses. Candidates who have appeared for the final examination of their qualifying degree in 2024 will also be considered for admission to the above courses. By qualifying in C-DAC's admission tests of January 2025, such university result-awaiting candidates can apply for provisional admission in February 2025 batch, subject to the condition that:

(a) All parts of their qualifying degree examination shall be completed by the date of joining the course, and

(b) Proof of having passed the qualifying degree with at least the required minimum marks shall be submitted at C-DAC by 31 July 2025.

Important Notes:

• Candidates should ensure that they meet the eligibility criteria of the courses for which they are applying. It shall be incumbent upon candidates to prove they meet the prescribed eligibility criteria at the time of taking admission at allocated centre. Issuance of Admit Card and/or C-CAT rank does not automatically entitle a candidate to admission. In case a candidate is found to be non-eligible during any stage of the admission process or course delivery, his/her admission will be cancelled with immediate effect.
• For any admission-related correspondence with C-DAC, candidates must email to the addresses mentioned in this Admission Booklet from their registered email, and must mention their name and C-CAT Form No. without which C-DAC may not be able to respond to these candidates.

Admissions to all PG Diploma courses of Febraury 2025 batch are done through C-DAC's Common Admission Test (C-CAT) that will be conducted in computerised mode physically at C-DAC’s test centres on January 11 and January 12, 2025. Candidates have to apply for C-CAT online at www.cdac.in or acts.cdac.in. Candidates who clear the January 2025 C-CAT will only be considered for admission to C-DAC’s PG Diploma courses of February 2025 batch on the basis of their C-CAT ranks and centre/course preferences.

C-CAT Test Papers

C-CAT has three sections (Section A, Section B, Section C) of one hour duration each. As shown in Table 5, depending on the category of courses selected by the candidate, he/she will have to either appear for just one test paper (Section A) or two test papers (Section A and Section B) or all the three test papers (Section A, Section B and Section C). The medium of C-CAT is English.

Important Note: A candidate can appear only for the specific section(s) in C-CAT as per the category of the courses opted by him/her at the time of filling the online application form.

Every section in C-CAT will have 50 objective-type questions. Each question will have four choices as possible answers of which only one will be correct. There will be +3 (plus three) marks for each correct answer, -1 (minus one) for each wrong answer, and 0 (zero) marks for each un-attempted question. The maximum mark a candidate can obtain in any one section of C-CAT is 150.

Categories of PG Diploma courses and the corresponding test paper(s) in C-CAT.

C-CAT Syllabus

Indicative syllabus of the different sections of test papers in C-CAT.

The list of reference books for the various topics of C-CAT is given in Table 6b. Candidates are, however, advised to read more books than the ones specified in this table.

Reference books for the various topics in C-CAT.

C-CAT Schedule

C-CAT for admission to the February 2025 batch of PG Diploma courses will be held in computerised mode physically at C-DAC’s test centres on January 11 and January 12, 2025. The tentative schedule for different test papers of C-CAT is given in Table below. The exact schedule of C-CAT will be communicated to the candidates through the Admit Card.

Table: Tentative schedule of January 2025 C-CAT.

C-CAT Cities

C-CAT will be conducted in computerised mode in various cities across India. The list of cities where C-CAT will be conducted in January 2025 is given in Table below. Candidates need to give 3 choices of cities while filling the online C-CAT application form. Refer to Section 14(b) of this Admission Booklet regarding C-CAT city preferences and allocation. All C-DAC test centres will adhere to the safety precautions issued by the government.

The C-CAT city once selected in the online application form cannot be changed unless approved in writing by C-DAC, subject to availability of seats on the requested city. All such signed letters of requests with proof of valid reasons should be received at actssupport@cdac.in before the last date of C-CAT application.

Table 8: Cities where C-CAT will be conducted in January 2025*.

* C-DAC at its discretion may cancel any of the above C-CAT cities due to less number of candidates or any emergency situation arising out of pandemic/calamities or any other relevant reasons. Refer to Section 14(b) regarding C-CAT city preferences and allocation.

C-CAT Admit Cards

Candidates can download their admit cards from C-DAC’s website during the dates mentioned under Important Dates. The venue, date and time of C-CAT will be communicated to the candidates on the admit cards. Instructions for appearing C-CAT will also be given on the admit card. Candidates must appear for C-CAT on the date and time at the venue specified on the admit card. The examination fee will not be refunded to candidates who are absent or coming late for C-CAT.

No candidate will be permitted to appear for C-CAT without a valid admit card. The admit card along with a photo identity proof must be presented to the C-CAT officials/invigilators for verification at the time of the test.

C-CAT Fee

C-CAT fee structure is given in Table below. Candidates may note that the C-CAT fee once paid is not refundable.

Table: Category-wise C-CAT fee (inclusive of GST).

After filling the online C-CAT application form, the examination fee must be paid online. It can be paid using credit/debit cards through the payment gateway that will be opened upon clicking the 'Online' option of the 'Make Payment' step on the main menu of the application. Candidates are advised to follow the instructions/steps given on the payment gateway, and also print/save the transaction details for their records.

On receiving the examination fee at C-DAC, the ‘Make Payment’ step on the main menu of the online application will be tick-marked, and the status of payment will be updated on the ‘Status Check’ menu. The pdf application form obtained by clicking the ‘View/Print Application Form’ on the main menu will now have the transaction details of the payment made. Candidates facing any issues during online payment may contact C-DAC ACTS Pune through phone (020-25503143) or email (actssupport@cdac.in).

Candidates will be provided ranks based on their performances in Sections A+B, Sections A+B+C of C-CAT. If a candidate appears for multiple sections and qualifies in them, he/she will be provided multiple ranks. For example, if a candidate appears for Sections A and B by choosing Category II in the application form, he/she will be provided two ranks: (i) based on the performance in Section A, and (ii) based on the performance in Sections A+B.

Candidates with the lowest 10% performances in section A and section B and section C of C-CAT will not be qualified for ranking. Even after the removal of the lowest performers as stated above, if there exist candidates in any section with zero or less than zero marks, then these candidates will also not be qualified for ranking.

Qualified candidates who have selected Category II in the C-CAT application form will be awarded Category II ranks based on their performances in Sections A+B. Qualified candidates who have selected Category III will obtain Category II and III ranks based on their performances in Sections A+B and A+B+C.

Important Notes:

(i) If a candidate has applied for Category II or III, but is not qualified in Section A due to poor performance in it, he/she will not get any rank in Category II or III, even if the candidate has got good marks in Section B and C.

(ii) Similarly, if a candidate has applied for category II or III, but is not qualified in Section B due to poor performance in it, he/she will not get any rank in Category II or III.

Tie-Breaker Rule: If two or more candidates have acquired the same marks in Section A or Sections A+B or Sections A+B+C, then the candidate having more marks in Section A will be given the higher rank. If these candidates have the same marks in Section A also, then the candidate having higher value in the ratio of ‘number of correct answers / number of attempted questions’ in the specific section required only for that category of courses will be given the higher rank. Candidates who have the same value of this ratio, and having the same total as well as Section-A marks will be given the same C-CAT rank.

Admissions to C-DAC’s PG Diploma courses at various training centres will be offered in the order of ranks obtained in C-CAT and based on the preferences of courses and centres given by the candidates during online counselling. Only those candidates who are in the C-CAT rank-list will be considered for admissions to C-DAC’s PG Diploma courses.

Rank-lists of January 2025 C-CAT are only applicable for admission to the February 2025 batch of C-DAC’s PG Diploma courses. Candidates should note that mere appearance in C-CAT or being in any of the rank-lists neither guarantees nor provides any automatic entitlement to admission. Qualified candidates will have to apply for admission as per the prescribed procedure.

Counselling & Seat Allocation Process

C-DAC’s PG Diploma admission process has two counselling sessions and three rounds of seat allocations. Counselling means online filling of preferences of courses and training centres by the candidates.

• There are two rounds of seat allocations based on the first counselling. This means that using the course-centre preferences given by the candidates during the first choice filling, two rounds of seat allocations (Round 1 and Round 2) will be done. Further details of the first counselling and first/second rounds of seat allocations are given in Sections 16(f-j) of this Admission Booklet.

Depending on their C-CAT ranks, candidates will be allocated seats strictly based on the order of preferences of courses and centres given by them during the counselling. If some candidates' ranks are not good enough to get them their top preferences in the first round of seat allocations, they may be offered their lower preferred courses/centres depending on their ranks. Such candidates may be allocated their higher-preferred course/centre in the second round of seat allocation, depending on their ranks. However, if candidates get their first preference in the first round of seat allocation itself, then that will be their final allocated seat and there will be no change for them in the second round of seat allocations. The seats allocated in the second round are final and there will be no further change in them.

• Through the second counseling, candidates who have not got/confirmed admission are given one last chance to online fill their preferences of courses and training centres for the vacant seats that arise after the second round of admissions. The second counselling is scheduled after the payment of the first installment fee of the second round of seat allocation. The third round of seat allocation is based on the second counseling. The categories of candidates who are eligible to take part in the second counselling, and more details of the second counselling and third round of seat allocation, are given in Sections 16(k-l) of this Admission Booklet.

During both the counselling sessions, candidates will be permitted to give preferences for only those courses belonging to the category (II or III) they had selected in the C-CAT application form. However, a candidate can give as many preferences of training centres and courses belonging to the applied C-CAT category.

Based on the C-CAT ranks, admissions to various courses at different training centres are offered in the order of preferences of courses and centres given by the candidate and the number of seats available for the courses at the particular centres. Therefore candidates must take utmost care while filling the order of preference of the courses and centres. Under any circumstance, a candidate will not be allocated another course/centre which was not given as a preference during the counselling stage.

Important Note: A candidate cannot join a lower preferred choice if he/she is allocated a higher preference in any round of seat allocation.

C-DAC Training Centres

Across India, C-DAC is offering Post Graduate Diploma courses through its centres located in Bengaluru, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida, Patna, Pune, Silchar and Thiruvananthapuram. Post Graduate Diploma courses are also offered by C-DAC’s Authorised Training Centres (ATC) in Bhubaneswar, Indore, Jaipur, Karad, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, New Delhi, Patna, and Pune. In addition to the C-DAC centres, PG-DUASP course is offered at various NIELIT centres. The address and contact details of these training centres can be found at https://www.cdac.in/index.aspx?id=edu_acts_TrainingCenters and also in Section 19 of this Admission Booklet. Tables 4a and 4b show the courses offered and the seat capacity at various training centres of C-DAC in the February 2025 batch. Table 4a shows the online courses and Table 4b shows the physical courses.

Table 4a: PG Diploma seat capacity at C-DAC’s training centres – ONLINE COURSES.

Important Dates

Table 13: Important dates related to admission to C-DAC’s PG Diploma courses of February 2025 batch through the C-CAT of January 2025.