Why A National Depository For Academic Records Is An Idea Whose Time Has Come

 

- Abhishek Raval

The Finance Minister had announced in his budget speech for2016-17 about the setting up of an Academic Depository on the pattern of a Securities Depository. The Government of India under the aegis of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) / University Grants Commission (UGC) subsequently nominated CDSL Ventures Limited (CVL) to operate the National Academic Depository (NAD) which would be used to hold academic awards i.e. mark sheets, convocation certificates, transfer certificates, issued by the academic institutions making it mandatory for them to participate in the dematerialization of student academic records and enable electronic and authentic verification of the same by institutions, employers and other verification agencies. NAD would be available online 24×7 access to the stakeholders. The experience of CDSL running a securities depository for nearly 20 years was considered relevant while deciding to award the academic depository project. The President of India formally inaugurated the project on July 9, 2017 in a grand function at New Delhi.

The NAD project is planned to cover around 1500 institutions which constitute 40,000 colleges. In addition, all central and state board results (10th and 12th standard) and their constituent schools/colleges will come under the NAD project. “We have as on date signed up over 150 academic institutions and Boards who are in various stages of uploading / updating awards in the electronic form in the NAD system. We have a cumulative count of nearly three lakh awards in the system, which can be verified by the institutions / companies who are registered with us,” says Joydeep Dutta, Executive Director and Group CTO, CDSL.