Virat Kohli, Murali Vijay and Ojha have moved up to Grade B, while Rohit Sharma has been demoted to Grade C.
RP Singh and Munaf Patel, who were previously in Grade B, have not been obtainable contracts.
The board has made several changes to the structure, reducing the total number of contracted players from 41 to 24, and doing away with Grade D.
The annual retainer has been increased from Rs.
60 lakh to Rs.1 crore ($135,594 to $225,990) for Grade A and from
Rs 40 lakh to Rs.50 lakh ($90,396 to $112,995) for Grade B.
The fees for category C remain at Rs.25 lakhs ($56,498).
Yuvraj has had an unmemorable 2010, with indifferent form and fitness dogging him through one of the toughest phase of the career.
He was unsatisfactory at the World T20 in the West Indies and was subsequently dropped for the Asia Cup other than returned for the Tests in Sri Lanka.
In the 1st Test, he scored 52 and 5 in Galle, before missing the 2nd with fever. He was declared fit to play in the third but was passed over from the final XI in favour of Suresh Raina, who had replaced him for the 2nd Test and scored a century on debut.
Gambhir has, on the other hand, been more fortunate and has retained his Grade A classification despite an indifferent year - he has missed 3 of India's last 6 Tests with injuries, and has bagged ducks in the 2nd innings in each of other three.
Dravid, who has been out of India's limited-overs plans since the 2009 Champions Trophy, also features in the A category, despite his recent dip in Test form. Karnataka seamers Abhimanyu and Vinay Kumar, who required their way into the national side through impressive shows in the 2009-10 first-class seasons, have been added to Grade C, along with Pujara, who scored a fluent half-century against Australia on Test debut.
Dinesh Karthik, who has been in and out of the one-day side as a back-up keeper and a make-shift opener, has been axed from the contract list, along with Ajinkya Rahane, Tiwary and Dhawal Kulkarni. Dhawan, Abhishek Nayar and Tyagi also find themselves out of contracts.
Team Grade A:
Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag , Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, and Zaheer Khan
Grade B:
Yuvraj Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Virat Kohli, M Vijay and Ojha
Grade C:
Rohit Sharma, Sreesanth, Amit Mishra, R Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Abhimanyu Mithun and Vinay Kumar
