Parliament Question: Digitisation of manuscripts

MINISTRY OF CULTURE RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3080 ANSWERED ON 19.03.2026 DIGITISATION OF MANUSCRIPTS 3080. Smt. Ranjeet Ranjan: Shri Shaktisinh Gohil: Will the Minister of CULTURE be pleased to state: (a) the number of manuscripts surveyed, catalogued and digitised under the Gyan Bharatam Mission since 2023, State-wise and language-wise; (b) the funds sanctioned, released and utilised under the Mission since then, including on digitisation, conservation and digital repository development, year-wise and component- wise; (c) the number of digitised manuscripts currently accessible to the public through official portals as on date and whether such access is free; and (d) the details of academic institutions, private collectors and research organisations working on the digitisation and dissemination of manuscripts, State-wise. ANSWER MINISTER OF CULTURE AND TOURISM (SHRI GAJENDRA SINGH SHEKHAWAT) (a) to (d) Gyan Bharatam Mission, announced during Union Budget 2025-26, is a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Culture (MoC), Government of India to undertake manuscripts related activities under various components including survey and registration of manuscripts, building robust technology infrastructure and partnership, documentation, conservation, digitization, publication of manuscripts and capacity building & research. More than 8 lakh digitized manuscripts in different formats such as DVD, HDD, microfilms are available across the country. These digitized manuscripts are being reformatted as per Gyan Bharatam Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), out of these 1.29 lakh manuscripts are accessible to the public on the National Digital Repository (NDR). In addition, National Manuscript Survey has been launched on 16th March, 2026 for identification, documenting and creating a comprehensive national database of manuscripts available with institutions, private individuals, scholars, mutts, temples, libraries and other repositories and data of more than 12.97 lakh manuscripts has been already reported so far. During financial year 2025-26, a total of Rs.13.29 crore has been utilized as on 15th March, 2026. This Mission has been mandated to establish a nation-wide network of Cluster Centers (CCs) and Independent Centers (ICs) across the country. A list of CCs/ICs onboarded so far is as follows:Cluster Centres S. No. State Organization Name 1 Assam Dept. of Sanskrit, Assam University, Silchar 2 Bihar Nava Nalanda Mahavihar, Nalanda 3 Delhi University Library Jamia Hamdard 4 Central Sanskrit University 5 Gujarat Shruta Ratnakara, Ahmedabad 6 Oriental Institute, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara 7 Himachal Pradesh Himachal State Museum, Shimla 8 J & K Dept. of Persian, University of Kashmir, Srinagar 9 Shasvat Art Gallery, Jammu 10 Karnataka Samskriti Foundation, Mysuru 11 Oriental Research Institute, Mysuru 12 Karnataka Sanskrit University, Bengaluru 13 Kerala Oriental Research Institute & Manuscript Library, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram 14 Ladakh Central Institute of Buddhist Studies, Leh 15 Manipur Manipur State Archives 16 Madhya Pradesh Department of Sanskrit, Dr. Hari Singh Gour University, Sagar 17 Maharashtra Kavi Kulaguru Kalidas Sanskrit University, Nagpur 18 Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune 19 Odisha SARASVATI Bhadrak 20 Department of Sanskrit, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar 21 Rajasthan Rajasthan Sanskrit Academy, Jaipur 22 Vishwa Gurudeep Ashram Shodh Sansthan, Jaipur 23 Sikkim Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok 24 Telangana Telangana State Archives & Research Institute, Hyderabad 25 Uttar Pradesh Vrindavan Research Institute, Vrindavan 26 Uttarakhand Shri Laxmidhar Acharya Chakradhar Joshi Vidyamandir Shodh Sansthan, Nakshatra Vedhshala, Devprayag 27 University of Patanjali 28 West Bengal The Asiatic Society, Kolkata Independent Centres 1 Andhra Pradesh Sanatan Jeevan Trust, Tirupati 2 Bihar Khuda Baksh Oriental Public Library, Patna 3 Bodh Gaya Math, Gaya 4 Gujarat Adhyatma Parivar Trust, Surat 5 Haryana Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra 6 Karnataka Tara Prakashan Vedic Library & Research Centre, Bengaluru 7 Kerala Sevadhi Museum & Ideological Research Institute, Kottayam 8 Chinmaya International Foundation, Ernakulam 9 Maharashtra Anandashram Samsthan, Pune 10 Bharat ItihasSanshodhak Mandal Sadashiv Peth, Pune 11 Madhya Pradesh Anekant Gyan Mandir, Bina 12 Scindia Oriental Research Institute, Ujjain 13 Abhay Jain Granthalaya, Bikaner 14 Rajasthan Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, Jodhpur 15 Padmashri Narayan Das Pandulipi Shodh Sansthan, Jaipur 16 Uttar Pradesh Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Varanasi 17 Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, Prayagraj 18 West Bengal University of Kolkata *****