The Union Cabinet gave its nod to the proposal, paving way for the Ministry to bring the National Academic Depository (NAD) Bill 2011 in the Parliament. The national database would be established in an electronic format by an identified registered depository, with all institutes, including school boards, IITs, NITs and polytechnics from different states having linkages to the depository, they said.

Establishment of the database would also help the administration effectively deal with issues like forged certificates and fake degree rackets. It will also enable online verification and easy retrieval of academic qualifications.

Students would also benefit from the fact that from now on they need not worry about spoilage of certificates over time and getting their certificates attested, they said. The Cabinet is also understood to have approved incorporation of some suggestions of the Parliamentary Standing Committee in the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) (Amendment) Bill and the National Institute of Technology (Amendment) Bill.

The NIT Act (Amendment) is aimed at inclusion of the five Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) and the 10 new NITs within the ambit of the Act so as to empower them to award degrees, the sources added.