E-ShodhSindhu and Shodhganga

1. Introduction

The University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Information and Library Network Centre (INFLIBNET) have taken significant initiatives to improve access to scholarly information and research visibility in India. Two of the most important programmes are E-ShodhSindhu and Shodhganga.
E-ShodhSindhu, launched in 2015, is a consortium that provides Indian universities and colleges with access to a wide range of international e-journals, e-books, and databases at affordable rates through collective licensing. Shodhganga, started in 2011, is a digital repository of Indian electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). It provides open access to Ph.D. and M.Phil. research work submitted in Indian universities, ensuring preservation, visibility, and prevention of duplication in research.
Together, these initiatives aim to democratize access to knowledge, strengthen higher education, and integrate Indian scholarship into the global academic community.

2. About E-ShodhSindhu

E-ShodhSindhu is a consortium formed in December 2015 by the Ministry of Education (earlier MHRD) on the recommendation of an Expert Committee. It merged three existing consortia: UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium (2004), N-LIST (2009), and INDEST-AICTE Consortium (2003). The aim was to consolidate efforts and provide Indian higher education institutions with access to high-quality e-resources. Today, E-ShodhSindhu offers access to more than 10,000 peer-reviewed journals, as well as bibliographic, citation, and factual databases, covering a wide range of disciplines. It serves universities, centrally funded institutions, and colleges recognised under Sections 12(B) and 2(f) of the UGC Act.

Aims and Objectives

• To provide qualitative electronic resources, including full-text, bibliographic, and factual databases, at affordable subscription rates.
• To strengthen and augment services offered by earlier MHRD-funded consortia.
• To develop a rich collection of e-journals, e-journal archives, and e-books with perpetual access.
• To monitor and promote effective usage of e-resources in universities and colleges through training and awareness programmes.
• To bridge the digital divide by extending access to institutions across India.
• To provide access to open-access scholarly content via subject portals and gateways.
• To extend selected e-resources to additional institutions such as open universities and MHRD-funded bodies not covered earlier.
• To build a foundation for a National Electronic Library, with e-journals and e-books as its core components.

Features

• Access to more than 10,000 core journals from reputed publishers and aggregators.
• Coverage across multiple disciplines: sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, and humanities.
• Inclusion of both current and archival resources.
• Consortium-based licensing reduces subscription costs and benefits all members equally.
• Member institutions include central universities, IITs, IISERs, IIMs, and other recognised institutions.
• Training programmes, usage statistics, and support for libraries to maximise resource utilisation.
• Acts as a unifying platform to build India’s academic information infrastructure.

3. About Shodhganga: a reservoir of Indian Theses

Theses and dissertations are among the richest and most unique sources of information. Often, they remain the only form of research output that does not get published in books or journals. Unfortunately, such valuable research frequently stays untapped and underutilised, leading to unnecessary duplication, repetition of work, and wastage of resources. Recognising this, the University Grants Commission (UGC) entrusted the INFLIBNET Centre (Information and Library Network Centre) with the responsibility of establishing a national digital repository for Indian theses and dissertations.
Shodhganga was officially launched in 2011. The name itself has symbolic value: “Shodh” means research or discovery in Sanskrit, and “Ganga” represents the sacred and ever-flowing river, symbolising India’s cultural and intellectual continuity. Thus, Shodhganga stands for a flowing reservoir of Indian intellectual output stored in a digital repository.

UGC Regulations and Shodhganga: a reservoir of Indian Theses

• The UGC Notification (Minimum Standards & Procedure for Award of M.Phil./Ph.D. Degree, 2009 and its 2016 amendment) mandates that universities must submit electronic versions of Ph.D. and M.Phil. theses to the INFLIBNET Centre.
• The aim is to ensure open access to Indian theses and dissertations for the global academic community.
• The regulations emphasise that submission to Shodhganga is not optional but compulsory. Universities signing MoUs with INFLIBNET receive UGC financial assistance to digitize their back files of theses.
• According to Clause 13.1 of the 2016 Regulations, each university must deposit an electronic copy of every Ph.D. thesis in Shodhganga. Clause 13.2 directs institutions to certify that the degree has been awarded only after submission of the e-thesis.

Technical Framework of Shodhganga: a reservoir of Indian Theses

• Shodhganga is built on DSpace, an open-source digital repository software developed at MIT in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard.
• It supports international interoperability standards like the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and uses a qualified version of the Dublin Core metadata schema.
• The repository has the ability to capture, index, store, disseminate, and preserve ETDs (Electronic Theses and Dissertations).
• Universities can establish their own institutional repositories using DSpace or other OAI-PMH compliant software, while Shodhganga serves both as a central archive and a backup.
• INFLIBNET also deploys a central harvesting server to collect metadata from distributed repositories, ensuring unified access.

Features of Shodhganga

• Open Access Repository: Provides free access to full-text theses and dissertations submitted by Indian universities.
• University Structure: Replicates the academic structure of each university (departments, centres, colleges) to make navigation easier.
• Search Options: Offers both simple and advanced search, as well as browsing by university, department, subject, author, or title.
• Semantic Web Development: INFLIBNET is working on a semantic web-based interface to improve subject-based browsing and retrieval.
• Plagiarism Check: Submissions are screened with plagiarism detection tools before uploading, ensuring originality and quality.
• Growing Repository: As of 2025, Shodhganga hosts more than 5,00,000 full-text theses, contributed by hundreds of universities across India.
• Licensing and Reuse: Theses are preserved with Creative Commons licensing, allowing academic reuse under non-commercial terms.

Importance of Shodhganga

• Prevents Duplication: Reduces repeated research and improves the quality of new research.
• Enhances Visibility: Increases global access and visibility of Indian academic research.
• Supports Collaboration: Facilitates research collaboration by making Indian research available worldwide.
• Ensures Preservation: Digitally preserves India’s intellectual heritage for future generations.
• Promotes Academic Integrity: By mandating plagiarism checks and providing open access, it deters academic misconduct.
• Policy Support: Acts as a tool for accreditation and funding bodies like UGC, AICTE, NAAC, and MHRD in assessing the research output of institutions.