Dmat accounts for educational certificates

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) has created the National Academic Depository (NAD) for digital storage, access and issuance of certificates issued by academic institutions.

All the certificates that the academic institutions issue will be credited to a digital account that every student will have under NAD, in the digital format. Aadhaar numbers will be used to uniquely identify the students.

Higher education institutions and employers will be able to electronically authenticate the certificates online, thus mitigating the risk of forged and fake certificates and eliminating the need for paper-based certificates.

The first academic institution to have joined the NAD is the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). It has made certificates for the 2016-17 academic year available in NAD.

‘Dmat’ or ‘demat’ accounts are otherwise used in India by investors to hold shares and securities in electronic form, instead of physical certificates.