India's open access future - Nature India

"India’s new science policy – Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020 – expected to be out before the year end, wants to make scholarly knowledge openly accessible to all.

An expert group consulting the government on the new policy has recommended a ‘one nation one subscription’ formula for India. This means the government will aim to negotiate with leading publishers of science journals a country-wide open access policy. Under the scheme, a single, centrally-negotiated payment will be made to publishers of scholarly journals in return for access to all published literature by every individual living in India. This new proposal is expected to replace the current norm where individual academic institutes or consortia of institutes subscribe to journals separately, thereby replicating costs, according to sources in the government.

The new approach will be similar to the German open access policy with the only difference that in India access to scholarly knowledge will not be restricted to the research or academic community. If this policy comes into force, anyone in India will be able to access scholarly literature without having to pay for it.

The other significant recommendation, which is yet to be ratified by all members of the expert group drafting the policy, is that authors of scholarly literature will be permitted to pay article processing charges (APCs) through grants available to them in order to get their articles published in reputed journals. The experts have proposed further negotiations to remove the burden of APCs on the researchers, either via a system of invoicing to the government or through a ‘subscription rights’ mechanism via a centralised portal...."