By Sanjoo Thangjam, Special Correspondent IOP
Monday, 9 July 2019: Universities of the North-Eastern Region were advised to quickly get themselves linked with the National Academic Depository (NAD), said Dr. Nikhil Kumar, UGC (NERO), Guwahati in the NAD Review Meeting held at Manipur University on Monday, 7th July 2019
Vice Chancellor of Manipur University Jarnail Singh, Dean of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Prof N. Rajmuhon, Dr. Nikhil Kumar from UGC and other delegates from Universities in Manipur and Nagaland in the NAD Review Meeting were present at VC’s Conference Hall.
The representatives of different Universities of Manipur and Nagaland as well as experts from the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the National Securities Depository Limited explained the process of getting registered with NAD and outlined its advantages.
The meeting organized under the directives of UGC / MHRD, which was preceded by the Administrator (VC) of Manipur University Sh. Jarnail Singh along with the Registrar of the University witnessed participation of more than 30 representatives from various Universities of Manipur and Nagaland including Manipur University, Nagaland University, Central Agricultural University, Imphal, Dhanamanjuri University, Directorate of Education(School), Govt. of Manipur, Directorate of University and Higher Education, Govt of Manipur, National Sports University, Imphal, Indra Gandhi National Tribal University, Regional Campus, Manipur, Manipur International University, National Institute of Technology, Manipur, Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur, and DD News, Imphal.
Dr. Nikhil Kumar, Education Officer UGC explaining the nitty-gritty of NAD and stated that the NAD is established by the Government of India as an endeavour to bring administrative and academic reforms.
He said that it is a 24X7 online storehouse of all academic certificates, diplomas, degrees and mark sheets, which are digitized and lodged by academic institutions.He further said that it does not only ensures easy access to and retrieval of an academic award but also validates and guarantees its authenticity and safe storage.
The experts pointed out that students were no longer required to carry their original certificates and mark sheets everywhere for job interviews and recruitments. Hence, they urged the educational institutions to come forward and take advantage of NAD.
The Vice-Chancellor, Manipur also addressed the participants; the Data Analyst and UGC-NAD Abhinav Sharma narrated the statistics of the institution wise data on the NAD portal. The Modus operandi and functionality of NAD portal was explained by Sreerup Halder from NSDL Database Management System Ltd (NDML).
The Universities already on-boarded were insisted to upload 100% data on to the NAD portal from 2018-19 immediately. And most of them are registered very fresh and all of them are, therefore, busy implementing its ‘students’ life cycle’ component- information like their registration, admission, attendance, initial assessment, admit cards, results, marks and certificates - in the first phase. There were total of 8 Universities which were yet to sign the SLA (Service Level Agreement) with any of the depositories which were sensitized.
In breakthrough of the event, Dhanamanjuri University signed the SLA on spot and two more Universities viz National Sports University and Manipur International University filed their confirmation to join immediately.