**Executive Summary**
The Gyan Bharatam Initiative, announced in the Union Budget on February 1st, 2025, is a Ministry of Culture (MoC) flagship program aimed at surveying, documenting, conserving, digitizing, and disseminating India's manuscript heritage. The initiative involves collaboration with academic institutions, museums, libraries, and private collectors. The Standing Finance Committee (SFC) has sanctioned Rs.491.66 crore for the period 2025-2031 to support the initiative.
**Key Points / Main Content**
* **Initiative Overview**
* Aims to cover over one crore manuscripts through collaboration.
* Establishes a National Digital Repository supported by advanced technology and Artificial Intelligence for global access.
* Launched on February 1st, 2025, as part of the Union Budget.
* **Implementation**
* The Gyan Bharatam Digital Web Portal has been launched by the Prime Minister of India.
* 31 institutions are engaged: 19 Cluster Centres and 12 Independent Centres.
* These centres work across five core verticals.
* **Core Verticals**
* Survey & Cataloguing
* Conservation & Capacity Building
* Technology & Digitization
* Linguistics & Translation and Research
* Publication & Outreach
* **Delhi Declaration (Gyan Bharatam Sankalp Patra)**
* Sets out a national commitment to preserve, digitize, and revitalize India's manuscript heritage.
* Calls for modern conservation practices, large-scale digital access, and renewed research.
* Aims to position India as a global center for manuscript-based learning.
* **Other Institutions involved**
* MoU has been signed with Dr. Harisingh Gour University, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh.
* Sangeet Natak Akademi, organizes festivals, workshops, exhibitions, and other programmes.
* The Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC), Kolkata, promotes the folk art of its member states.
**Impact Analysis**
**Stakeholder: Academic Institutions, Museums, Libraries, Private Collectors**
* **Impact**: Required to collaborate in surveying, documenting, conserving, digitizing and disseminating India's manuscript heritage.
* **Action Required**: Participate in the initiative to cover more than one crore manuscripts and contribute to the National Digital Repository.
**Stakeholder: Technology Partners**
* **Impact**: Provide technological support to Cluster Centres and Independent Centres across the country.
* **Action Required**: Finalise technology partnerships to support digitization efforts.
**Stakeholder: Scholars, Communities, and Private Custodians**
* **Impact**: United under the Delhi Declaration to preserve, digitize, and revitalize India's manuscript heritage.
* **Action Required**: Implement modern conservation practices and promote large-scale digital access to manuscripts.
**Stakeholder: Sangeet Natak Akademi and the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC)**
* **Impact**: To continue promoting and preserving India's cultural heritage through festivals, workshops, exhibitions and other programs.
* **Action Required**: Enhance the visibility of Odissi Dance, Odissi Music and Sambalpuri Dance at national events and festivals.
Key Entities Referenced
Gyan Bharatam Initiative: Flagship initiative of the Ministry of Culture to survey, document, conserve, digitize and disseminate India's manuscript heritage.
Ministry of Culture (MoC): The primary ministry responsible for Gyan Bharatam Initiative.
Union Budget (Para 84): The budgetary allocation that initially announced Gyan Bharatam Initiative.
Delhi Declaration (Gyan Bharatam Sankalp Patra): A national commitment for preserving, digitizing and revitalizing India's vast manuscript heritage.
Madhya Pradesh: One of the locations where MoU has been signed under the Gyan Bharatam initiative.
Ministry of Culture
Gyan Bharatam Initiative
प्रव तथ: 08 DEC 2025 3:36PM by PIB Delhi
Gyan Bharatam, the flagship initiative of Ministry of Culture (MoC), Government of India announced in
the Union Budget (Para 84) on 1st February, 2025, aimed at surveying, documenting, conserving,
digitizing and disseminating India’s manuscript heritage. The initiative envisages collaboration with
academic institutions, museums, libraries and private collectors to cover more than one crore manuscripts,
while establishing a National Digital Repository supported by advanced technology and Artificial
Intelligence to ensure access and global reach. To support the initiative, the Standing Finance Committee
(SFC) has sanctioned Rs.491.66 crore for the period 2025-2031.
The Gyan Bharatam Digital Web Portal has been launched by the Prime Minister of India. Memorandum
of Understandings (MoU) have been signed with 31 institutions, of which 19 Centres will serve as Cluster
Centres and 12 Centres as Independent Centres, working across Gyan Bharatam’s five core verticals:
Survey & Cataloguing; Conservation & Capacity Building; Technology & Digitization; Linguistics &
Translation and Research, Publication & Outreach. Technology partners have been finalized to support
Cluster Centres and Independent Centres across the country. Approximately 3.5 lakh Manuscripts have
been digitized in Gyan Bharatam.
The Delhi Declaration (Gyan Bharatam Sankalp Patra) sets out a national commitment for preserving,
digitizing and revitalizing India’s vast manuscript heritage by uniting institutions, scholars, communities
and private custodians. Emphasizing manuscripts as the living memory of India’s civilization, it calls for
modern conservation practices, large-scale digital access and renewed research to bring traditional
knowledge into contemporary relevance. By transforming heritage preservation into a people’s movement
and promoting global collaboration, the Declaration plays a transformative role in safeguarding diverse
scripts and knowledge traditions while positioning India as a global centre for manuscript-based learning.
Gyan Bharatam is a Pan India initiative and therefore, its scope is not confined to any specific State or
region of the country. Accordingly, MoU has been signed with Dr. Harisingh Gour University, Sagar,
Madhya Pradesh under the Gyan Bharatam initiative.
Sangeet Natak Akademi, an autonomous organization under MoC, organizes festivals, workshops,
exhibitions, and other programmes to promote and preserve India’s classical, traditional, tribal and folk
performing arts, including Odissi Dance, Odissi Music and Sambalpuri Dance. It also holds music
festivals, seminars and workshops and confers national honours such as the Sangeet Natak Akademi
Award and the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar to artists of Odissi Dance and Odissi Music.
The Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC), Kolkata, an autonomous organization under MoC, promotes
the folk art of its member states, including in Odisha and regularly showcases Sambalpuri Dance (a
vibrant folk dance form) through cultural events and festivals.
This information was given by Union Minister for Culture and Tourism Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in
a written reply in Lok Sabha today.
****Sunil Kumar Tiwari
pibculture[at]gmail[dot]com
(रलीज़ आईडी: 2200364) आगंतुक पटल : 1721
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