The state governments today endorsed the HRD Ministry's ambitious plan to set up an electronic database of all academic certificates issued by universities and central and state school boards.

At a meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), state education ministers gave their go ahead for setting up the National Academic Depository which will be an electronic database of all academic degrees and certificates.

The Ministry has already drafted National Academic Depository (NAD) Bill 2010 for the purpose. The government feels NAD will eliminating scope of fake certification.

"CABE considered the proposal on the proposed National Academic Depository Bill, 2010 for creating and maintaining a national electronic database of academic records and awards at no cost to Central or State Government," HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters.

The NAD will adopt adequate system of safeguards for storage, access and retrieval of records while ensuring its confidentiality, fidelity and authenticity. It provides for Rs 10 crore penalty or 10-year jail term in case of wrong endorsement by officials of the databank.

Under this initiative, the school boards, universities and certificate issuing institutions can have direct linkages to the depository. The certificates could be stored in a DMAT format.

Any person, company or institution requiring a copy of an academic award shall have the facility of online access or may obtain physical copy of the authenticated academic award from the NAD.

The draft law says that if any academic institution fails to discharge its duty or contravenes the provisions of the act will be liable for penalty up to Rs five lakh.

For offences like hacking into the national database, the offenders will be punishable under the provisions of the IT Act, 2000.