Ministry of Culture
NATIONAL MISSION FOR MANUSCRIPTS
Posted On: 16 MAR 2026 12:54PM by PIB Delhi
Government has launched Gyan Bharatam Mission as a major initiative under the Ministry of Culture. It aims to Survey, Document, Conserve, Digitize, and make accessible Manuscripts located in academic Institutions, Museums, Libraries, and Private collections across India.
To support the initiative, the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) has sanctioned Rs.491.66 crore for the period 2025-2031.
This Mission has been mandated to establish a nation-wide network of Cluster Centers (CCs) and Independent Centers (ICs) across the country to carry out above mentioned activities and more than 40 CCs and ICs have been onboarded so far in this direction. In addition, 28 States / UTs have also been onboarded so far to act as the Nodal Coordinating Authority for the mission’s implementation within the State / UT concerned.
Technical partners have been on boarded for various functions including metadata creation and its integration on National Digital Repository (NDR), deployment of equipments, AI-integrated digital platform and long term data storage.
With an objective of undertaking the manuscript related activities on a broader and intensive level on pan-India level, one crore is an estimated figure. Gyan Bharatam Mission aims to survey, document, conserve, digitize and make accessible manuscripts located in academic institutions, museums, libraries and private collections across India. This initiative focuses to cover manuscripts wealth of India irrespective of any group of region, language and scripts.
Gyan Bharatam Mission uses a systematic, technology-driven framework to protect India’s manuscript heritage. This framework includes scientific conservation & restoration through preventive and curative methods, high standard digitization of manuscripts, centralized access to digitized data through NDR, data security through LTO-9 tapes and cloud-based backup with disaster recovery systems.
In addition, the National Archives of India (NAI) has also undertaken large-scale digitization initiatives to create high-resolution digital copies of historical records where a checksum is generated for each digital image which helps to verify the integrity and authenticity of the digital records and ensures that any alteration or tampering can be detected.
Under Gyan Bharatam Mission, each digitized manuscript is accompanied by proper metadata, cataloguing and documentation which helps to maintain authenticity and traceability of the original source. Digital copies are stored in secure digital repository namely NDR which serves as a repository that allows for instant access for research etc. Data security through LTO-9 tapes and cloud-based backup with disaster recovery systems is also envisaged.
This information was given by Union Minister for Culture and Tourism Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in a written reply in Lok Sabha today
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M Annadurai
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