Case study: NITs

In the middle of 2025, we started asking ourselves a simple question: how much do colleges spend on proprietary software every year? The question came from many directions — we’ve known about FOSSEE’s work for years, some of us went to engineering schools where we used proprietary software, we kept seeing it in college curricula, and students kept bringing up the proprietary tools they were being taught as part of their official coursework. We discussed it with friends in the Indian FOSS ecosystem and wondered how to better understand the landscape. One day, we realized the Right to Information (RTI) Act could help — we could ask Union (Central) Government-funded institutes to disclose their software spending.

Why RTIs? Because this information isn’t clearly available elsewhere — for example, in the annual reports published by public universities. And because public universities are bound to disclose detailed spending information if requested. Why only Union/Central-government institutes? Simply to limit scope. We could always submit RTIs to state-funded universities later, or work with interested individuals from the FOSS and higher-ed communities. So we focused on the NITs, IIMs, AIIMSs, IIITs and IITs, put together a set of questions, and started submitting them — beginning with the NITs. Then we waited. The relevant authorities must respond within 30 days.

The responses slowly trickled in, and the names and numbers surprised us. But before we reveal them — what do you think an engineering institute spends on software every year? ₹1 lakh? ₹10 lakh? ₹1 crore? ₹10 crore? And what software? Hint: if you graduated with a Computer Science degree, your answer is probably not the biggest line item.

So far, we’ve seen institutes spend anywhere from ~₹25 lakh up to ₹3 crore per year. The largest line items are engineering software — MATLAB, ANSYS, AutoCAD — with smaller but significant spend on operating systems (Microsoft Windows) and SaaS (Google Workspace). We’ve only filed with the NITs and IIMs so far, and haven’t received every response yet; several have been “disposed of” and we’re working the appeals. But the numbers paint a stark picture. It appears the Indian higher-education sector spends at least ₹100 crore per year on proprietary software licences, on a conservative estimate of 100 engineering colleges spending ≥₹1 crore each.

But the money isn’t the real problem — it’s the lack of self-reliance. licence to Learn

India has pushed to become a product-based economy rather than one reliant on services to the rest of the world. But who will create those products when most of our engineers graduate as tool-users? Much of the procured software is built by corporations headquartered outside India. What happens if sanctions are placed on India, preventing nationals and companies from using these tools? Worse — what if our policy responses are constrained because we can’t risk getting sanctioned? Being able to build and use our own products isn’t sufficient; being able to create the tools that shape how we think and what we make is true atmanirbharta.

Epilogue. Maybe FOSS alternatives aren’t the answer here. Maybe the proprietary software is so advanced that reproducing it in a meaningful timeframe is near-impossible. We don’t believe it — but we’ll concede it’s possible. Even then, we still believe FOSS alternatives are the right answer in higher education, because higher education is about teaching fundamental concepts, not tool usage. That’s been lost in the race for “employable graduates” — i.e. tool users. Replacing proprietary software with FOSS gives students a path to develop agency, gain conceptual understanding, and — just maybe — inspires a few to create the next generation of tools.

See the underlying data on the Data so far page and the RTI Tracker.