What purpose will ONOS serve?

Indian institutions together are paying Rs. 1,500 crore rupees annually on journal subscriptions. ONOS will cost Rs. 2,000 crore rupees annually (link). The extra Rs. 500 crore rupees for providing access to institutions that lack resources for subscriptions appears to be a good deal. However, the actual benefit (in terms of usage and scientific output) will only be known after the scheme is rolled out. I am a bit skeptical for the following reasons:
 
1. The number of people given access may not be a very good measure. The actual number of users is hard to estimate. Most undergraduate students do not bother with reading scholarly articles. Institutions with PhD programs may already have access to relevant journals.
 
2. Under pressure from researchers in developed countries, most publishers are now embracing open-access publishing. About 50% of journals are now open-access, and this percentage is expected to increase in the future. Therefore, it is unclear whether the Indian government or the publishers are benefiting more from the deal.
 
3. The ONOS cost estimation does not account for the money spent on articles by Indian authors in open-access journals. I guess the cost of publication by Indian authors is significant. Sadly, ONOS does not cover publication in open-access journals.
 
Personally, I do not support either subscription journals or open-access journals. In this digital age, we do not need intermediaries like Elsevier at all. Individual authors and scientific societies should take responsibility for sharing knowledge. The money can be used for something else.

(December 2024, LinkedIn)