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Over 100,000 fake certificates of various Indian universities have been found in a Bihar town. The absence of industries and other business opportunities forces young men and women in Bihar to apply for jobs in government-run schools and also resort to fake certificates. Only two days ago, the government had rejected more than four million applications to check a fake degree racket and other irregularities during a teacher recruitment drive for government-run schools.

Police are investigating an Indian university suspected of issuing fake PhDs after it awarded more than 400 doctorates in a single year. They have arrested four senior officials from CMJ University in the northeastern state of Meghalaya on suspicion of fraud and forgery and are hunting for the chancellor, who has fled.

In India, university fraud is a national sport, practiced at all levels. Beginning with the former prime minister up to the former Delhi justice minister who allegedly fakes his qualification in … law. The increase in fake qualifications is undoubtedly linked to the lack of universities in the country, with some of the harshest selection processes in the world. Leaving the country to study overseas is so expensive that counterfeit diplomas from international universities abound.

About 3,000 schoolteachers in Bihar, who allegedly used fake degree certificates to get jobs, have resigned till date apprehending legal action. Earlier, the state government admitted that it recruited more than 300,000 contract teachers without verifying their educational and professional degrees. The petitioner of the probe said he has collected documents as evidence through Right to Information queries to prove that thousands of teachers used forged degrees to get jobs.

The Indian government is planning to digitise academic records as part of a drive against fake degrees and institutions at a time when prominent public figures are being challenged to prove that they are entitled to the degrees and qualifications they claim to have. The National Academic Depository, which will start functioning this year, will include authenticated academic records from 2016 onwards with the government ensuring that all institutions, including school boards, issue digitised certificates with digital signatures from this academic year.