Thanks for this update and also opening the debate on this topic, Arun.

It is really a sad state of affairs that India under ONOS is following this path. Fundamentally Article Processing Charges (APCs) is a flawed approach to Open Access. 

Why has India not only failed to reimagine and transform the traditional models of scholarly publishing, but instead adopting outdated ones such as Big Deals and allocating as much as INR 150 crores for paying Article Processing Charges (APCs) to commercial publishers? 

The notion of funding APCs is an outdated concept and practice. It is now widely recognized as unsustainable and regressive. Leading funding agencies and global initiatives have already moved away from this model: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has completely discontinued support for APCs; the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has significantly restrained such payments; and other major funders — including the Wellcome Trust, Plan S coalition members, and several European research councils — now restrict APC funding to fully Open Access (Gold OA) journals, explicitly excluding hybrid models. Across Europe and parts of North America, the policy direction has decisively shifted toward building infrastructures and community-based platforms that advance Diamond Open Access publishing — a model that removes both reader and author fees, ensuring equitable access and sustainability.

In this context, the  One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) initiative could have been a bold and visionary step toward transforming the scholarly communication landscape. ONOS had the potential to position India as a global leader in rethinking access, affordability, and equity in scholarly publishing — by negotiating national-level access while simultaneously investing in indigenous open infrastructure and capacity for Diamond or community-driven publishing. Instead, it appears to replicate legacy subscription-based “Big Deal” arrangements, locking the country into the very systems that perpetuate dependence on commercial publishers and constrain the growth of open, self-sustaining knowledge ecosystems. We seem to continue to be in the "long shadow of  Oldenburg" -- as our friend and OA sage Jean-Claude Guédon says. 

Rather than seizing the opportunity to pioneer a transformative model aligned with global shifts toward open and equitable science, India seems to have chosen the path of least resistance. The result is a missed opportunity — not just to catch up with international best practices, but to lead in shaping a more just, accessible, and future-ready scholarly publishing system.

It is ironic that we  seem to adopt APC, when others are moving away and rethinking the APC. 

Another troubling aspect of the One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) initiative is its underlying assumption that providing access to all — across approximately 13,000 journals — is inherently fair and equitable. While this sounds appealing in principle, the critical question to ask is: Do researchers and institutions in India really need access to all these journals?

Empirical studies of journal usage have consistently demonstrated the validity of Bradford’s Law, which shows that a relatively small core of journals accounts for the majority of actual use and citations, while the vast remainder sees minimal engagement. In this light, a blanket-access model may create the illusion of comprehensiveness and inclusivity, but in practice, it offers diminishing returns — a symbolic rather than a substantive gain. In this context the MIT model (subscribing to a small number of core journals) only appears to be a more sensible approach. 

More importantly, given that India’s expenditure on research and development remains well below global averages, allocating such a large sum to journal subscriptions raises serious concerns about policy priorities. Instead of investing heavily in access to content that may go largely unused, resources could be more wisely directed toward strengthening national research infrastructure, building open-access repositories, and supporting indigenous journals and publishing platforms that enhance visibility and impact of Indian research globally. 

These are my views on this issue of APC and ONOS. 

Shalini

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