Parliament Question: Gyan Bharatam Mission and Manuscript Digitisation

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF CULTURE LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 1225 TO BE ANSWERED ON 27.07.2026 Gyan Bharatam Mission and Manuscript Digitisation

1225. Shri Kota Srinivasa Poojary:

Shri Radheshyam Rathiya:

Shri Trivendra Singh Rawat:

Shri Shashank Mani:

Dr. Sanjay Jaiswal:

Shri Avimanyu Sethi:

Will the Minister of CULTURE be pleased to state:

(a) the details of the target set for the survey and physical registration of ancient scripts under the newly structured Gyan Bharatam Mission framework, district-wise in the country;

(b) whether the Government has integrated advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology on its portal to process the 18 crore newly digitised manuscript pages;

(c) if so, the details thereof; and

(d) the manner in which the Government plans to resolve copy-ownership and intellectual property challenges while allowing open public research access to rare religious manuscripts? ANSWER MINISTER OF CULTURE AND TOURISM (SHRI GAJENDRA SINGH SHEKHAWAT)

(a) Under the Gyan Bharatam Mission, National Manuscript Survey was launched across all States and Union Territories of the country to identify and document manuscript holdings, repositories and custodians representing diverse languages and scripts. However, any district-wise target was not set for the survey and physical registration of manuscripts under the Mission. During the survey, more than

1.19 crore manuscripts have been reported.

(b) & (c) Gyan Bharatam Web Portal uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) -enabled technologies, including Large Language Script Models (LLSM), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR), script recognition, semantic search and machine-assisted translation, to provide intelligent access to India’s manuscript heritage.

Gyan Mitram, the AI-powered knowledge interface of the Gyan Bharatam Web Portal uses LLSM, OCR, HTR, script recognition, semantic search and machine-assisted translation to enable intelligent interpretation, contextualization and exploration of manuscripts by integrating manuscript images, transcriptions and translations.

BharatiyaGPT, features “Manuscript-to-Conversational AI” on Gyan Bharatam Web Portal converting manuscript heritage into AI-ready, machine-readable knowledge and provides a multilingual andmultimodal access, including text, audio and voice-based interaction through its “Talk to Manuscript” feature, thereby making India’s knowledge traditions more accessible to scholars, students, researchers and the public.

Pandulipi Darpan is an AI driven tool on Gyan Bharatam Web Portal that enables users to upload or select a digitized manuscript image and access AI-assisted script recognition, transliteration and translation.

(d) Access to digitized copies of manuscript is facilitated in accordance with applicable laws and the rights of custodians and rights holders. Wherever legally permissible, manuscripts and associated metadata may be made available for public and scholarly research through the National Digital Repository, while sensitive, restricted or rights-protected materials may be subject to appropriate access conditions.

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