Frequently Asked
Questions
General

NDML Academic Depository has been formed to facilitate issuance, storage and access of academic awards in an online depository system on the pattern of Securities Depository.

Academic Institutions, Students and Verification Users (Background check agencies, Employers, Banks, Consulates, Academic Institutions) are the main stakeholders in NDML Academic Depository system.

NDML Academic Depository (NDMLAD) aspires to make the vision of Digital Academic Certificates for every Indian a reality. This touches the lives of Indian youth and empowers them with Digital, Online, Trusted, Verifiable Certificates which are accessible in a secure manner at all times. NDMLAD promises to do away with difficulties / inefficiencies of collecting, maintaining, and presenting physical paper certificates. NDMLAD is not only a database copy of the certificate records for Academic Institutes but a complete system for Issuing Online Certificates to Well Identified and Registered Students. It will be an active online place for Students, Academic Institutes and Verification Users. NDMLAD brings in deterrence factor for people who wish to think that paper certificates can be easily forged / created and as verification processes are costly and inefficient they can use the arbitrage. By doing so it also brings trust and credibility to genuine certificate holders and makes their certificates trusted and easily accepted.

NDMLAD will develop an online portfolio of all education certificates which can be submitted easily for employment, higher education, and loan and are easily trusted and verified. NDMLAD integrates directly with Boards / Universities which issue Certificates and hence ensure Authenticity of Certificate Records

Important services that NDMLAD will provide:

  1. Disseminate Information about NDMLAD System, its features & Participating Academic Institutes.
  2. Facilitate Academic Institutes to participate in NDMLAD system.
  3. Facilitate & Train Academic Institutes to Securely Lodge Certificates in NDMLAD system.
  4. Facilitate Academic Institutes to Update / Rectify the Certificate Records with updated / supplementary information.
  5. Relieve the burden of Academic Institutes in maintaining online database of academic certificates and providing verifications / duplicate certificates.
  6. Facilitate Academic Institutes to maintain important data masters.
  7. Facilitate Academic Institutes to Communicate with Students.
  8. Register Students on NDMLAD System & Map Certificate Records to Students.
  9. Facilitate Issuance of Online & Physical Certificates to Students.
  10. Facilitate Students to access their Certificate Records at all times.
  11. .Facilitate Students to Authorise other Entities (Academic Institutes, Employers, Banks, VISA Consulates, Government Authorities) to access Digital Copy of the Certificate and Verify the details;
  12. .Facilitate Students to apply for and obtain Duplicate / Authenticated Copy of the Certificate.
  13. Develop a broader overview of the Indian Education sector and provide trends, observations and analytics on Enrolment, Progression, Preferences and Outcomes

Students

NAD is an initiative of MHRD to provide Academic Certificates in digital format to students which are available for 24/7 online access to the students. This is an initiative under “Digital India” program to empower the students with online, permanent access. The certificates are digital and verifiable and hence are easily trusted by all users. NAD is a significantly beneficial initiative for students.

You can visit NSDL NAD Portal at https://nad.ndml.in and select register as a student. You can use your Aadhaar to register on NAD. Upon entering the Aadhaar number, the system verifies the genuineness of the Aadhaar number by sending the details to UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India). UIDAI thereafter sends an OTP (One Time Password) to the mobile number seeded in Aadhaar. You would be required to enter the OTP within the specified time. If the OTP is entered correctly, UIDAI shares your Aadhaar details with NAD system to facilitate your electronic registration. This registration method is completely electronic and happens quickly.

In such a case, you can visit Aadhaar enrolment centre and apply for Aadhaar or update your mobile number in your Aadhaar record.

However, if you are not able to enrol for Aadhaar or update your mobile number, NAD facilitates you to register by declaring your details and create the registration. NAD will give you NAD ID, which can be used by you thereafter for logging in to NAD. This NAD ID will need to be verified by an Academic Institution participating in NAD.

NAD will make all your certificates which are lodged by participating academic institutes available in your online NAD account. You can access all the certificates at all times.

Following needs to be ensured for this:

  • Your registration on NAD is completed as per previous question.
  • You submit your Aadhaar / NAD ID information to all your Academic Institutions.
  • Your Academic Institutions join NAD and lodge your certificate records with your Aadhaar / NAD ID.

NAD Portal will maintain a list of all Academic Institutions which are participating in NAD system. Please refer to same.

NAD is a Government of India initiative and is being made available across the country. This would greatly increase the security, authenticity and verifiability of the certificates and bring “Trust” factor for genuine certificates.

Yes you can request a printed certificate through NAD system.

NAD system provides significant operational and technical safeguards to ensure that certificate accuracy is ensured. Academic Institution directly upload and lodge the records in NAD system after conducting thorough verification of certificate records and digitally signing the records being lodged.

However, if you ever find some discrepancy in your digital certificates, NAD will facilitate you to lodge a grievance so that same can be taken up with concerned academic institution for verification / rectification.

NAD framework respects privacy of the data and records of each person. Certificates can be accessed only by the student to whom it belongs (as identified by the lodging academic institution). Other Verification users as are specifically authorised by the student can also access the certificate record.

If some employer requests for a verification of your certificate record, NAD will notify you by sending you Email / SMS on your registered details. You can then log-in to your account, review the details of the request and approve / reject the same.

Yes, you can seed Aadhaar number to an existing registration. The procedure explained regarding Aadhaar verification will be used.

You will need to approach the AI to seed your Aadhaar / NAD ID in a certificate record which is already uploaded on NAD. AI will verify the details of the same and the details of the certificate record. NAD system will facilitate the AI to recall the said record and seed the Aadhaar number / NAD ID. Thereafter such a record will be automatically mapped to your login / registration.

Yes, you can request the NAD system to share your award details with any Verifier.

Reasonable fees will be charged for NAD services which will be as per the guidelines from MHRD in this matter. This information would be displayed on NAD portal.

No. You have to be registered with NAD to enable you to give consent / disapproval for any verification request.

Yes, you have to provide the approval / rejection for the same within reasonable time. Presently the same is fixed at 7 days.

If you do not accord approval / rejection within reasonable time, the request is considered as infructuous and becomes ineffective.

Yes. You can choose to allow verification only for some of the awards held by you.

Student cannot upload award of this nature as only AI will be able to upload and lodge awards in NAD. The student can ask NAD for retrieval of an existing award and share it with Verifier.

ACADEMIC INSTITUTION

Under the framework of NAD system, MHRD has appointed two depositories to facilitate AIs with wider choice of efficient and competitive services. You can choose to lodge your certificate records with any depository of your choice.

NAD system ensures that the data lodged with any depository is automatically replicated on other depository also.

The students can also choose to register on any depository irrespective of which depository you choose to lodge awards.

You may invite proposal from both the depositories in terms of their organisation profile, experience of developing and implementing projects and NAD service and commercial offerings. This would help you make informed decision about experience, capabilities and other details of both the depositories and the commercials being offered.

It may be mentioned that the standard services being offered by depositories under the NAD framework have been designed and reviewed by MHRD and would be operated in a uniform manner by both the depositories. MHRD will also define the ceiling on the service charges that may be levied by the depositories for NAD service.

It may also be mentioned that by choosing any depository at this point of time, you do not loose your flexibility to shift to other depository in future. At any point of time in future if you wish to shift to other depository; you can do so without having to upload previous records or redo any previous work.

You will be required to sign an agreement with NSDL. This agreement is a standard agreement and is reviewed and approved by MHRD. You can submit the model joining agreement along-with basic details of your AI to NSDL for onboarding your AI on the depository system. It may be mentioned that there are no charges for joining / registering on NSDL NAD. NSDL teams spread across the country would also be happy to help you in joining / registering on NSDL NAD.

NSDL will register the details and provide you with a signed copy of the agreement for your records.

NSDL will also generate and issue you a unique AI Code. This code is unique for each AI, across both the depositories. This code can also be used while lodging any data in NSDL NAD.

NSDL NAD would be happy to assist and hand-hold you in understanding and using Depository system and brings around its services closer to you in many ways:

  • Training Manual and Presentations
  • Step by Step demonstration of various processes involved in the form of Online and Offline Videos for immediate reference;
  • Access to NSDL NAD pilot set-up where you can operate in a test environment and see the output and results before moving to live set-up
  • Training Programs & Presentations
  • Utilities for conversion of data and its preparation
  • NSDL Regional Teams
  • NSDL Mumbai Team
  • NSDL NAD Help-desk

AI is an important focal point for the working of the NAD system. Students enrol with AI for pursuing courses, AI issues Awards to the students. NAD looks forward to creating a digital front-end for the AI which it can use to facilitate engagement with students and issue them certificates. NAD will also serve as an information and certificate records management system to support the needs of the AI.

Following are the important functions to be performed by AI:
  • Advising students to register on NAD system.
  • Collecting NAD registration details of Students.
  • Including NAD registration details of Students in Student records and certificate records.
  • Preparing, verifying and lodging Certificate awards in NSDL NAD system.
  • Advising Verifiers to use NAD system for certificate verification.
  • Using NAD system for verifying certificates issued by other AI; for granting admissions.

These functions are explained in details in this document.

Advising students to register on NAD system :

Students need to register on NAD system so that their Certificates can be made available to them in a convenient and secure manner in their account.

It is suggested that Aadhaar Identification framework offered by UIDAI may beforeused for the purpose of student identification and NAD registration of the students.

AI may advise students as part of its admission process or examination enrolment process to submit their Aadhaar details and also provide a confirmation that the student has registered on NAD using such Aadhaar. This will ensure that the Aadhaar number is available with the AI for the student and student's registration on NAD is completed. It may be mentioned that Aadhaar based registration on NAD system is a convenient, electronic registration which can be easily completed in a few minutes.

Collecting NAD registration details of Students

It is important that Students register on NAD system and submit their registration information to AI. There are following two methods of NAD registration available to students

Aadhaar based registration: As explained earlier, this is a completely online registration process which is supported with Ekyc framework of UIDAI. It can be easily completed by most of the students. For those students who have not completed Aadhaar registration or do not have Mobile number or Email ID registered in their Aadhaar records, they can visit any convenient Aadhaar Enrolment centre of UIDAI and complete the process before registering on NAD. As AI also start collecting Aadhaar Number as part of its admission process or examination enrolment process, there will be no further data collection or verification will be required.

Non Aadhaar based registration: It has been pointed that there are few locations where Aadhaar enrolment facilities are not widely available and hence NAD provides an alternate registration process. Here, the student can visit NAD website and declare that he / she does not have Aadhaar. Depository system will facilitate the student to register and declare his / her information including the the photographs and the signature impression. Student’s account will be temporarily registered and will be issued a registration ID. However, this data is as declared by the student and it is not verified. Therefore, the academic institution needs to review it and verify the same from its record and approve the registration. AI will also make a note of the student’s NAD ID. Now student’s account is registered with NAD ID and the same information is also available with AI. When AI uploads the certificate award with the NAD ID, the same will be directly credited to the NAD account of the student.

Including NAD registration details of Students in Student records and certificate records;

As explained above, AI will collect Aadhaar / NAD ID for the students and NAD account of the students will also be registered with Aadhaar / NAD ID. When AI uploads the certificate award with the Aadhaar / NAD ID, the same will be directly credited to the NAD account of the student.

Preparing, verifying and lodging Certificate awards in NSDL NAD system

The academic institution needs to prepare the details of the certificate records which needs to be issued to the students. These records can include Degrees, Marks Statement, Provisional Certificate, Transcript, Migration certificate. AI needs to prepare the certificate records in the prescribed XML data format. NSDL NAD will provide easy utility for preparing the data in XML format and provide training to AI for the same.

The records should be verified by the concerned officers before lodging into the depository system. Authorised Officers of the AI needs to digitally sign the data being lodged in the depository system. AI needs to ensure that details of the students NAD registration i.e. Aadhaar / NAD ID are included as part of the certificate records so that the certificate can be made available to the student in his / her account.

Using NAD system for verifying certificates issued by other AI; for granting admissions

The depository system will also help the academic Institutions to verify The authenticity and correctness of the certificate being submitted by the students while applying for admissions. Presently the academic institutions have to verify the paper certificates and make photocopies. With the Depository system, the academic institution will be able to upload the details of all the students who applied for admissions and seek details of the certificate in an electronic manner from the depository system.

The responsibility for accuracy and authenticity of certificate records and identity of the students rests with you. Therefore, you need to ensure that certificate data is thoroughly verified and authorised persons lodge the records in NAD under their digital signatures.

Before lodging the certificate records in the depository system, it is to be ensured that the depository system understands the details of the courses being conducted by the academic institution, the type of certificate being granted and the format of the certificates. Therefore, the academic institution needs to provide the details of the various courses being conducted, the subjects been covered under such courses and the certificates provided. The Depository system will create these details in the system and will get it verified from the academic institution. Thereafter when the academic institution lodges the certificate records, the same will be matched again the details already registered and the certificate should be generated in the certificate design which is already agreed and the certificates will be issued to the account of the concerned students.

In order to create an institutional framework for operating NAD services, it is suggested that a Nodal NAD Cell be created in all AIs and such cell ensures that various NAD functions are effectively executed. The Nodal Cell will be nodal point of contact with Depository. NSDL NAD will provide the required training and handholding support.

NAD system will issue a unique NAD Certificate ID to each certificate record in NAD system. This number will also identify the details of the depository through which the certificate was lodged.

Yes it is possible to correct / modify / update / cancel any certificate record which is lodged in depository system. If due to any reason it is observed that there was an error in the records which were lodged or the record was updated subsequently due to further events / review; the depository system will provide facility for enabling such change. It may be mentioned that the depository system will maintain complete audit trail of the instance of lodgement and the change. Therefore, it would be possible to identify the officers who have changed the records and the reason for the change

Yes. You can upload awards for the past years in the depository. However, for effectively uploading any award, the complete data including student identity should be provided to the Depository

Yes. Standard MIS will be provided to you to get the required information and also objectively decide on various aspects of certificate records issuance and verification.

Verifiers

You can submit Verifier registration form to the depository. Depository will verify the details and process your application. You can create users to use NAD system.

This can be done online using your NAD User Log-In. You can request for a certificate verification based on certificate details such as issuing AI Name, Course details, Year of passing, Student Roll Number. You can also verify the certificate using NAD issued Certificate ID.

System will receive your request and notify the concerned student to approve / reject the request. Based on approval of the student you will be able to verify the certificate.

The certificate would be made immediately available to you for verification after the student has provided his / her consent.

If the student does not accord approval within reasonable time, the request is dropped. You will be required to raise a fresh request, if you wish to verify the said award.

No. Any award can be verified by you only with the explicit approval of the student.