NAD will not always be free for students

Viewing and downloading copies of degrees and other academic credentials at recently launched National Academic Depository (NAD) will not be always free of cost. Students, registered with the national depositor, will have to pay a certain amount of fee every time they want to view their academic records after attaining the age of 27.

Downloading digitally signed documents from the depository will cost no money to students for just one time. However, a certain amount of fee will be collected from the students for downloading of such documents second time and onwards. Besides, the depositor will also levy an annual usage fee from the students once they attain the age of 27.

“The amount to be collected as user charges from the students is yet to be fixed as the all efforts are currently focused on bringing all the educational institutions on board to NAD,” official sources told DH. A total of 218 educational institutions has so far registered for safe storage and retrieval of the academic records of the students at NAD. Over 40.75 lakh academic records of the students have been uploaded till date.

Among the academic institutions registered at NAD, a total of 13 are from Karnataka including the central university in the State, T A Pai Management and the Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship, Bangalore.

More than 6000 students have registered at the NAD so far while the number of employees. “Viewing of awards (degrees and other certificates) will be free till a student attains the age of 27. There will be no annual user charges till the student attains the age of 27. Only first download of an academic award will remain free till the student attains the age of 27,” according to NAD.

The HRD Ministry, which operationalised the NAD recently, has roped in the NSDL Database Management Limited (NDML) and CDSL Ventures, Limited (CVL) - two of the wholly owned subsidiaries of the depositories registered under Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, 1992, to run and maintain the NAD.

As of now, registration at the NAD is free for both the academic institutions and the students. "A certain amount of fee would be collected from the academic institutions which will register at the depository after September 30, 2019," an official said.