S, Sudarshan Rao2025-12-082025-12-082025-12-089789381232149https://ir.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/1944/254614th International CALIBER 2025, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, November 17-19, 2025This paper discusses the importance of democratization of knowledge in providing equitable access to knowledge for all in the country for achieving the vision of Viksit Bharat, a developed nation, by 2047. In all the activities, such as excellence in education, innovation, research, development, and economic advancements, technology development, employment, etc., open and free access to scholarly information is of vital importance. The paper offers the meaning of Democratization, Open Access and Open Access Publishing, their importance in building a Knowledge Society and thereby a knowledge Economy. It describes how knowledge democratization helps in achieving Viksit Bharat and the role of open access in the democratization of knowledge. It also discusses the challenges of open access publishing, such as the proliferation of predatory OA journals, the burden on authors with huge amounts of Article Processing Charges, apprehensions about the quality of OA publications by a section of authors, Copyrights as access limitations, etc. The paper discusses the role of librarians in overcoming the challenges/constraints to Open Access. This work followed Descriptive and Analytical methods of study and made use of secondary sources of information and secondary dataenDemocratization of KnowledgeKnowledge DemocratizationOpen Access AdvocacyOpen Access BarriersOpen Access ModelsOpen Access PublishingArticle