New Delhi: Four years after the Centre announced its ambitious plan to set up a National Digital University to expand access to world-class digital education, the Ministry of Education has silently scrapped the project after another central ministry launched a digital university platform but with a different mandate, ThePrint has learnt.
Announcing the Centre’s plan amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her FY 2022-23 Budget speech had said that the National Digital University would offer personalised learning in regional languages and work with central universities to bolster infrastructure and training. Soon after, the education ministry conceived the university in 2022 as a national higher-education platform aggregating courses and degrees from public universities. But, it never went beyond the drawing board.
Three years later, in 2025, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) launched a different digital university platform through one of its autonomous bodies, the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT).
This digital university platform is centred on its own online and blended programmes in emerging digital technologies and industry-linked skills. NIELIT provides education, training, certification and skilling in electronics, IT and emerging technologies.
“There were technical and administrative issues. When the NIELIT digital university platform was launched in 2025, it was decided to stop this (National Digital University) project. In any case, most higher education institutions have already expanded their online education offerings and are already providing online courses on a large scale,” a senior government official told ThePrint, when asked if the National Digital University proposal had been shelved.
At the launch of NIELIT last October, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the government had approved the proposal after considering several options for its digital university initiative. However, there was no public announcement that the original project had been discontinued or replaced with NIELIT.
In a Rajya Sabha reply, the Education Ministry said in August that it had “envisaged the establishment of a Digital University platform,” and cited the NIELIT Digital University as an initiative providing digital learning opportunities. The reply did not state that the original 2022 project had been scrapped or that the NIELIT platform had replaced it.
Another senior government official told ThePrint, “The idea (of a National Digital University) did not materialise and, when another platform was started, it was decided to drop it,” while acknowledging that the NIELIT digital university platform is very different from what was originally envisaged under the education ministry’s proposal.
The gradual winding down of the envisaged project is also reflected in the education ministry’s budget allocations. In FY 2024-25, Rs 100 crore was allocated for the National Digital University but it was slashed to Rs 25 crore in the revised estimate. In FY 2025-26, Rs 25 crore was allocated though no revised estimate was provided. No allocation was made for the project in the Union Budget for FY 2026-27.
ThePrint reached the ministries of Education and MeitY via email for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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What education ministry envisaged
The National Digital University announced in the FY 2022-23 Budget was not conceived simply as an online course platform. The education ministry began working on its design within weeks of the announcement.
On 21 February 2022, it held a brainstorming session on “Digital University: Making World Class Higher Education Accessible for All,” with senior government officials, UGC and AICTE heads, academics and industry representatives. Discussions covered the digital platform, content creation, digital pedagogy, faculty training, virtual labs and assessment.
The ministry said the detailed roadmap would include a regulatory framework and identification of “hub and spoke” higher education institutions.
In an April 2023 Lok Sabha reply, the education ministry said the National Digital University would follow a “networked hub-spoke model,” with a central hub building Information and Communications Technology (ICT) expertise through partnerships with institutions such as IIT Madras, Delhi University, IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur.
These institutions would form the wider network through which the National Digital University would expand access to higher education.
What is NIELIT’s digital university platform
NIELIT, meanwhile, followed a different trajectory. Established in 1994 as an autonomous scientific society under MeitY, it was primarily a national examination, accreditation, education and skilling body in information, electronics and communications technology.
It operated through a nationwide network of centres and affiliated institutes, rather than as a university. That changed in July 2024, when the education ministry notified NIELIT Ropar and 11 of its constituent units as a deemed-to-be university under the distinct category.
Under this specialised category is a University Grants Commission (UGC) pathway that allows new (greenfield) or specialised existing institutions to gain deemed-to-be-university status without meeting traditional multi-year accreditation or legacy age requirements.
The new university was authorised to offer undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programmes in digital technologies, while NIELIT continued to operate under MeitY.
A year later, in October 2025, NIELIT launched its digital university platform.
Unlike the 2022 proposal, this was built around NIELIT’s existing institutional network and focused on online and blended, skill-based programmes in AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, Industry 4.0 and semiconductors. The platform was explicitly described as employment-oriented and industry-linked.
The platform began offering its current range of courses this year, centred on emerging technologies such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, IoT and Industry 4.0.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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