Contrary to its intended goals of reducing subscription costs and improving access to scientific literature in India, Muthu Madhan argues the much-hyped One Nation One Subscription policy risks significantly increasing expenditure while delivering little in return.
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One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) was conceived in 2019, when India’s three major science academies released a report, written by a panel of fellows, recommending a single national subscription to optimise the annual expenditure on scientific journal subscriptions by universities and research institutions in India. They estimated these costs to be ₹1,500 crore (approximately $180 million). Although their estimate was arguably high, it became the benchmark for subsequent discussions and negotiations.
These proposals rested on a belief, in retrospect naïve, that collective bargaining would help reduce costs.
The then Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the government of India extended support for ONOS implementation with capping article processing charges levied by publishers to make research papers open access on their websites. These proposals rested on a belief, in retrospect naïve, that collective bargaining would help reduce costs. Subsequently, in 2022, the office of the PSA initiated a two-phase ONOS implementation plan. The first phase aimed to merge the ten or more library consortia into a single entity, with the anticipated savings from unified subscription licenses intended to support author-pay open access by covering article processing charges. The second phase sought to expand access to “every individual in India”.
Overly ambitious
The negotiation committee formed by the government engaged with 70 publishers of journals, standards, and databases. The committee aimed to complete the negotiations by April 2023, but the process dragged on with little progress due to lack of convergence on the framework.
Yet, after three years, the union cabinet of the government of India has approved an ONOS scheme involving only 30 journal publishers, signalling a failure of vision and conceding to ‘One Nation, Many Subscriptions’ as the reality. Under this scheme, the government says it will provide access to 13,000 e-journals from these publishers to 18,000,000 students, faculty, researchers, and scientists across 6,300 government-run higher education and research institutions. The government will spend ₹6,000 crore (approximately $723 million) on these subscriptions over a three-year period from 2025. This expenditure(₹2,000 crore or $241 million per year) is more than double the 2023 estimate provided by Subhas Sarkar, former Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, and 25% higher than the 2019 estimate given by the fellows of the three academies.
The government will spend ₹6,000 crore (approximately $723 million) on these subscriptions over a three-year period from 2025. This expenditure(₹2,000 crore or $241 million per year) is more than double the 2023 estimate
Capping article processing charges, one of the ONOS aims, which sought to use savings from consolidating library subscriptions to fund author-pay open access, has not been achieved.
A deal too big to fail?
Negotiating with the for-profit journal publishing oligopoly, whether individually or collectively, has consistently proven to be a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ game for publishers, as opposing parties hold little power since journals are not classical market commodities. Devika Madalli, a member of the ONOS negotiation committee, recently stated that the policy has not resulted in savings for the government of India. The justification for the cost increase ‘more will have access’ is unconvincing and merely echoes a flimsy reason used by publishers to defend higher fees.
According to InCites (2023), authors from about 1,326 institutions in India contributed at least one paper to journals indexed by the Web of Science (WoS) databases, with just 470 institutions exceeding the threshold of 100 papers. This list includes a significant number of private institutions. We should also note that even in research-intensive institutions the actual use of subscribed journals is suboptimal. For example, Giridhar Madras observed that researchers at the Indian Institute of Science interacted with fewer than half of the journals they subscribed to. Similarly, Ramamoorthi and Jeyashankar found that researchers at a unitary university, a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research laboratory, and a Department of Atomic Energy research institution used (either for publishing or citing) less than 20% of the journals available to them through consortia or institutional subscriptions. With this backdrop, investing substantial funds to extend access to information that is esoteric in nature, for a large number of smaller institutions, most of which may lack research capacity, does not appear to be a prudent strategy.
Further, the Web of Science databases show that at least half of the articles published in the past four years have been freely accessible (Fig.1), and almost 50% of the papers published in 2024 are already open access. A significant portion of the articles published in 2023 by most of the publishers involved in the ONOS deal were open access (Fig.2). Given this, it is reasonable to question why the Indian government should pay for papers that are already open access. In addition, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation’s support for author-pay open access enables publishers to engage in multiple dipping, altogether leading to a colossal waste of public funds.
Over the past twenty years, many academic libraries worldwide have recognised the downsides of journal big deals and are actively seeking alternatives. SPARC’s big deal cancellation tracking reveals that 89universities, largely from the US, have cancelled similar big deals, particularly with the large for-profit publishers involved in ONOS scheme. Notably, MIT Libraries cancelled subscriptions to Elsevier journals in 2020 due to copyright restrictions imposed by the publisher. Since then, MIT Libraries have adopted a ‘pay-per-article access’ model, saving significant costs annually without hindering research or teaching. Ignoring such international experiences, India risks replicating an archaic and flawed strategy, and engaging in the ‘dangerous big deal game’ at a great expense.
Ultimately, the ONOS scheme reflects a failure of informed science policymaking in India. Yielding to for-profit foreign publishers and calling it a game-changer and ‘atmanirbahar’ (self-reliant) is a major irony. Given the significant issues and harms associated with ONOS policy, the Indian government should critically reassess its approval, which seems to be based on an ‘illusion of quality and utility’.
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Excellent assessment Mr. Muthu Madhan!
Instead they should increase research funding otherwise what to do with research papers without sufficient, regular and timely funding for research?
I find it odd that you seemingly advocate for lesser democracy in science. This statement, especially, seems in rather poor taste : ” investing substantial funds… strategy”.
Let’s not forget that most people want research in India to grow. If offering research journals for free to small institutes can help further than goal, I do not see the problem with it. Can the idea be bettered? Yes. Is it open to criticism, and are most of your points valid? Also yes. But claiming that small institutes cannot make use of ‘esoteric’ knowledge is demeaning and belittling at best.
Most research in India occurs in tie-ups between multiple institutes. If opening up journal access allows multiple small institutes to collaborate with each other, instead of being forced into collaborating with, and being subordinate to much bigger universities, then this only furthers scientific advancement.
This statement seems to have come from a place of elitism. I did not expect that from someone of our scientific community.
“If offering research journals for free to small institutes can help further than goal”- I believe accessing paid articles is not an obstacle for someone who wants to do research, regardless of whether they work in a small or large institution. Elbakyan is doing a great job.
Thank you very much sir for such a constructive analysis. I am happy to see this article as certainly I was thinking in a similar context when this one nation one subscription declared by PM.
The intentions if such policies are cristal clear, hiwevere benefit to few individuals and the policy is backed by the government. Its a sad state of affairs.
Yes, the Indian government should critically reassess its approval, which seems to be based on an ‘illusion of quality and utility’.
ONOS needs to be discussed among all concerned threadbare before okaying it . We are at the threshold of open access and have made great strides in this direction worldwide. Again research requires access to diverse resources . Thirteen thousand journals may not meet cent percent requirements of one and all.
Library professional associations would do well to come forward and organise discussions on the pros and cons of the crucial issue.
Pay per click model works only where funds are available with the institution level. In most of the state universities there is no such provision. So comparing Indian state universities with world’s most richest private universities like MIT at same level does not seem justified to me. Its true that usage is low for subscribed journals but that’s also a problem of availability of research infrastructure. But then if infra is not available closing access of journals will lead to a situation where infra will never improve as researchers won’t be come aware about what others in the world are doing. I believe we should try this model first before commenting on future results. The claim of the author that the public money is not being fairly used here does not stand good as most of the public funded Universities are already spending millions over these costly subscriptions and most of the tier two and three universities are facing fund shortages for running day to day affairs due to significant contribution of their income going n these subscription. Now at least centre is taking these burdens off annually of these smaller institutions.
A critique supporting status quo without allowing policy to mature and bring results. Indian government may not have negotiated well but the author does not offer any alternative to the policy except saying that it will bring intended results. Let’s wait for the results first.
Dear Sir,
Good analysis. Why you are not meet and explain to government by email, social media or any way to save money.
Do you believe it has not been communicated to the government? Please check
Excellent analysis…
Highly biased view. Of course its lot of money to spend, but for the year it’s 2000 Crores. For 1.8 Crores students, it’s Rs. 1111 per person / per year. A single paid researach paper can cost anywhere between 2000-4000 rs. So it’s a steal assuming students can use it optimally. Educations remains a key conern for India’s growth and this makes a definite sense! Irrespective, it’s a 3 years deal and am sure in future we can figure out better deal basis of usage.
ONOS seems a short term solution. What happens after 3 years and will the future government continue supporting such a deal? Thoughts need to be directed towards a long term vision.
Is anyone worried about systematic downloading and copyright issues this kind of broad access will give rise too?