Union Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy said the history of all the great men associated with the freedom struggle will be digitised in the context of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’, being celebrated to commemorate 75 years of independence.

The work of digitisation of these records is taking place in the National Archives of India (NAI).

This is a mega project so that the people of the country and the world can easily access the archival material, which will be available on the records portal. This will be of educational value and contribute to awareness generation as well.

National Archives of India

• The National Archives of India (NAI) is the custodian of the records of enduring value of the government of India. 

• It was established on March 11, 1891 at Calcutta (Kolkata) as the Imperial Record Department.

• It was shifted to New Delhi in 1926. 

• After independence, the IRD was rechristened as the National Archives of India.

• NAI is one of the largest and prestigious centres of archives in the world and holds records running into 80 crore pages, 57 lakh files and 1.2 lakh maps among others.

• It is the biggest archival repository in South Asia. It has a vast corpus of records — public records, private papers, oriental records, cartographic records and microfilms — which constitute an invaluable source of information for scholars, administrators and users of archives.

• The NAI is an attached office under the ministry of culture. The organisation is headed by the director general of archives who is assisted by deputy directors of archives looking after various divisions like records management, administration, training, publication, library, conservation, digitisation, etc.

• The department has a regional office in Bhopal and three records centres in Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Puducherry.

• The NAI houses central government records of enduring value and private papers of eminent personalities for permanent preservation for the users. 

• It is the nodal agency for the implementation of The Public Records Act, 1993 and The Public Records Rules 1997, and assists various ministries/departments in their record management programmes. 

• It also renders guidance to various voluntary institutions and individuals for imparting technical know-how for preservation of valuable records and papers. 

Mission of NAI:

• Encourage scientific management, administration and conservation of records all over the country.

• Foster close relations between archivists and archival institutions, both at the national and international levels.

• Encourage greater liberalisation of access to archival holdings.

• Help in developing greater professionalism and a scientific temper among creators, custodians and users of records for proper care and use of our documentary heritage.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store