Ministry of Information & Broadcasting: Shodhganga

The University Grants Commission (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of M.Phil./ Ph.D Degrees), Regulation, 2016, mandates that after successful completion of the evaluation process and before the announcement of the award of the M.Phil./Ph.D. degree(s), the Institution concerned shall submit an electronic copy of the M.Phil. dissertation /Ph. D. thesis to the Information and library Network (INFLIBNET), for hosting the same so as to make it accessible to all Institutions/Colleges. To implement this provision of the UGC Regulations, 2016, Shodhganga repository was set up. The task of setting-up of this repository was assigned to INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar – an Inter-University Centre of the University Grants Commission (UGC).

 

 The main objectives of Shodhganga are to:

(i)     develop a national repository of theses and dissertations with an intuitive interface which enables submission of electronic version of theses and dissertations by Universities in India and facilitates search, browse and downloading of theses available in the repository;

(ii)   avoid unnecessary duplication and repetition that, in effect, is wastage of huge resources, both human and financial;

(iii) providing access to Indian theses and dissertations in open access to world-wide academic community and making visibility of Indian research to other countries;

(iv) extend access to plagiarism detection software to eligible universities; and

(v)   fund eligible Universities (that are under purview of the UGC) for digitization of back lists of theses submitted to their universities.  

 

The salient features of Shodhganga are as follows:

 

So far, 1,35,942 theses have been uploaded onto Shodhganga. 

 

INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar has informed that no University has, so far, responded negatively or shown reluctance to join the scheme.

 

This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question."