Overview of NISSAT: India’s National Information System for S&T

Picture India in the mid-1970s. Research laboratories, universities, and industries were producing scientific knowledge at a growing pace, but much of it stayed locked inside individual institutions. There was no organised way for a textile engineer in one city to access research generated by a chemical laboratory in another. To fix this fragmentation, the government launched a programme that would shape how scientific and technical information moved across the country for the next 25 years: the National Information System for Science and Technology (NISSAT). This post explains what NISSAT set out to do, what it built, and why it still matters to students of library and information science today.

What was NISSAT? 🔗

NISSAT was not a single library or database. It was a national programme designed to coordinate and organise the many information centres serving different industries and research units into one integrated system. The idea was to stop the haphazard, duplicated growth of information services and bring them in line with national and international standards.

The roots of the programme go back to 1971, when the government approached UNESCO for guidance on building a science and technology information network. The UNESCO consultant Dr. Peter Lazar submitted a detailed report in 1972, and his outline formed the basis of the final plan. The National Committee on Science and Technology (NCST) recommended the proposal, and it was incorporated into the Science and Technology Plan under the Fifth Five-Year Plan before NISSAT was finally launched in 1977.

The programme began under the Department of Science and Technology (DST). After the reorganisation of government in 1985, it was placed under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), where its national focal point operated from New Delhi. Notably, NISSAT was structured as a decentralised network, meaning it relied on standardised but mutually compatible systems spread across the country rather than one central repository.

Objectives of NISSAT 🔗

The broad objective was straightforward: interlink and coordinate a large number of information sources, systems, and services into an effective network under one overall coordinating agency. Beneath that umbrella sat several practical goals that guided the programme’s day-to-day work.

Building a national information infrastructure 🔗

NISSAT aimed to develop national information services where they did not yet exist and to strengthen those that did. Rather than building everything from scratch, it worked to connect research institutions, universities, and industrial organisations into a usable network. This approach respected the expertise that already existed inside specialised laboratories.

Reducing duplication and waste 🔗

A core motivation was efficiency. When every institution maintains its own isolated collection, the same journals get purchased many times over and the same effort gets repeated. By coordinating resources, NISSAT sought to prevent duplication of activities and bring information handling in line with recognised standards. This was as much an economic decision as a scientific one.

Introducing modern tools and international cooperation 🔗

The programme also worked to introduce modern information-handling techniques, such as CD-ROM databases and computerised retrieval, and to promote international cooperation. NISSAT made deliberate efforts to build a bridge between information developers and users in India and counterparts in other countries, giving Indian researchers a window into knowledge generated abroad.

Major achievements over 25 years 🔗

NISSAT operated from 1977 to 2002, a span of roughly 25 years before the programme was wound down. In that time it left behind a substantial body of work. Its achievements can be grouped into three areas: sectoral information centres, patent and database services, and library networks.

National information centres 🔗

One of the most visible achievements was the creation of a series of sectoral national information centres. These were not generic libraries; each was a specialised hub built around the existing resources of a major research institution and focused on a single industry or discipline. They served scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers who needed reliable technical information.

The centres covered a wide range of fields. According to one overview, NISSAT established centres in domains including leather technology, drugs and pharmaceuticals, food technology, machine tools, textiles, chemicals, and advanced ceramics. Some well-known examples illustrate the model clearly:

Food sciences: The food technology information centre was associated with the Central Food Technological Research Institute in Mysore, supporting research on food processing, preservation, and nutrition. Leather: The leather information service was housed at the Central Leather Research Institute in Chennai, serving an industry of major export importance. Textiles: A dedicated centre served textiles and allied subjects, a sector central to both Indian manufacturing and employment. Machine tools: A centre at the Central Manufacturing Technology Institute in Bangalore supported the machine tools and production engineering industry.

By locating each centre inside an institution that already held deep subject expertise, NISSAT ensured that the people answering technical queries actually understood the field. This decentralised, domain-specific design was one of the programme’s defining features.

Contributions to patents and R&D 🔗

Supporting patent information was one of NISSAT’s most forward-looking contributions. Patent literature is a rich and often underused source of technical knowledge. As leaders noted at the time, patent information helps reveal trends in technology, predict future developments, avoid duplication in research, and identify the work of potential competitors.

To make this knowledge usable, NISSAT set up the Value Added Patent Information System (VAPIS) in two areas. One was established for chemistry and chemical technology at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, and another for engineering at the Central Manufacturing Technology Institute in Bangalore. These centres procured patent databases on CD-ROM and offered patent searches and analysis to industries and research organisations.

The value of this work lay in its connection to indigenous research and development. By giving Indian innovators access to global patent records, VAPIS helped them protect their own intellectual property, avoid infringing on existing rights, and position their products in a competitive market. NISSAT also promoted research in the information sciences themselves, treating the discipline as a field worthy of investment rather than mere support staff work.

Databases and access to international services 🔗

Beyond patents, NISSAT strengthened access to information through other channels. It set up national access centres to international data services and supported a national collection centre for CD-ROM databases. In the late 1990s it also developed an Indian science and technology web server and several sector-specific websites covering subjects such as tea, ocean data, food technology, and intellectual property law. These steps moved Indian information services toward the digital, networked world that was just emerging.

NISSAT and the rise of library networks 🔗

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of NISSAT lies in the metropolitan library networks it seeded. The programme recognised that resource sharing among libraries could reduce costs, avoid duplication, and improve communication. So it took on the role of setting up the basic infrastructure, including network service centres, hardware, software, and trained staff, and then let local societies take ownership.

NISSAT initiated networking efforts in several cities, including Calcutta (CALIBNET), Bombay (BONET), Madras (MALIBNET), Ahmedabad (ADINET), and others. The Calcutta Library Network is a good case study. DSIR began feasibility work for networking around 40 libraries in Calcutta in the mid-1980s, and CALIBNET was inaugurated in December 1993, using its own software called Maitrayee to link member libraries for online and document delivery services.

The pattern was consistent across cities: NISSAT provided the seed funding and technical guidance, and the networks gradually evolved into self-sustaining societies. Many of these networks continued to operate long after the parent programme ended, which is a strong indicator that the model worked.

Why NISSAT closed and what it left behind 🔗

The programme was formally closed in March 2002. Information habits had changed dramatically by then. The internet was spreading, commercial databases were becoming directly accessible, and the centralised coordination model felt less necessary in a world where a researcher could increasingly reach sources on their own.

Yet the ideas behind NISSAT have aged well. Its emphasis on networked services, decentralised subject expertise, and building human capacity speaks directly to current challenges in research data management and open science. As scientific output continues to explode, the problem NISSAT tried to solve, helping people find reliable, relevant information without drowning in volume, is more pressing than ever. For students of library and information science, NISSAT is a valuable case in how a country can organise its knowledge resources deliberately rather than leaving them to chance.

What do you think? If a programme like NISSAT were redesigned for today’s world of open-access journals, preprint servers, and AI-driven search, which of its principles would still hold up, and which would you replace? And given how much information is now accessible directly online, do you think a centrally coordinated national information system still has a role to play in India’s research ecosystem?

References

1. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/lisp4/chapter/organisation-of-national-information-systems-and-programmes/
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/national-information-systems
3. http://web.simmons.edu/~chen/nit/NIT'89/89-251-mangla.html
4. https://www.scribd.com/document/385726812/nissat
5. https://newonlinelibrary.blogspot.com/2013/07/about-nissat.html
6. https://www.dsir.gov.in/vol-15-issue-no-4-october-december-1996-value-added-patent-information-centres
7. https://www.ijrar.org/papers/IJRAR19K2160.pdf
8. https://worldlibraries.dom.edu/index.php/worldlib/article/download/351/307?inline=1
9. https://testbook.com/question-answer/in-which-year-was-the-national-information-s–676abd8937d428e0169d45e7