More than 11.3 crore scholarly research articles were downloaded by students, researchers and faculty members across government institutions in 2025, the first year of the One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) scheme, according to data from the Ministry of Education.
Among institutions, Indian Institute of Technology Madras recorded the highest number of downloads at 40.3 lakh, followed by Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, with 28.3 lakh downloads. Among central universities, Banaras Hindu University logged 15.3 lakh downloads, while University of Delhi recorded 14.2 lakh.
The scheme, approved by the Union Cabinet in November 2024 and launched on January 1, 2025, provides nationwide access to international scholarly journals for students, faculty and researchers in government higher education and central R&D institutions.
Under ONOS, the Centre pays subscription fees directly to publishers, allowing institutions to access journals without bearing subscription costs. The government has allocated around Rs 6,000 crore for the initiative, which is approved for three years from 2025 to 2027.
According to the ministry, users are downloading around one crore research articles every month through the platform. The scheme currently includes 30 major international academic publishers, giving access to more than 13,000 journals.
Among publishers, Elsevier’s ScienceDirect platform accounted for the largest share of downloads with 4.4 crore articles (37 per cent). It was followed by Springer Nature with 2.2 crore downloads (18 per cent). Journals published by the American Chemical Society saw 1.4 crore downloads (12 per cent), while Wiley accounted for 1.1 crore (9 per cent). Taylor & Francis recorded 0.8 crore downloads and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) accounted for 0.6 crore.
Also read: DRDO urges industry, academia to ramp up research efforts
The initiative has significantly expanded academic access compared with the earlier system of multiple subscription consortia run by different ministries. Previously, about 8,000 journals were available through 10 separate library networks, including e-Shodh Sindhu and other ministry-based consortia.
With ONOS, the system has been consolidated into a single national subscription framework, increasing access to over 13,000 journals and expanding the beneficiary base from 55 lakh users earlier to nearly one crore users.
The number of participating higher education institutions has also increased from around 2,300 earlier to nearly 5,800 institutions across the country.
The ONOS digital portal is operated by the Information and Library Network Centre (INFLIBNET), an inter-university centre under the University Grants Commission. Institutions can access journals through IP-based campus authentication or remote login using institutional credentials.
Another feature of the scheme provides Article Publishing Charges (APC) support to Indian researchers publishing in more than 430 gold open-access journals, enabling them to cover publication costs.
The initiative will be periodically reviewed by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, which will track usage trends and research output.
Follow us
