Should Indian researchers pay to get their work published?

Paying to publish is an ethical issue. India is potentially spending about US$ 2.4 million annually on APCs paid to OA journals. The amount would be much more if we add APCs paid to make papers published in hybrid journals open access. It would be prudent for Indian authors to make their work freely available through interoperable repositories, a trend that is growing in Latin America and China, especially when funding is scarce. Scientists are ready to pay APC as long as institutions pay for it, and funding agencies are not ready to insist that grants provided for research should not be used for paying APC.