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GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF CULTURE
LOK SABHA
UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3737
ANSWERED ON 16.03.2026
NATIONAL MISSION FOR MANUSCRIPTS
3737. Shri K E Prakash:
Will the Minister of CULTURE
be pleased to state:
(a) the status of National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) on covering one crore manuscripts, as
answered in Unstarred Question No. 2376 dated 04.08.2025;
(b) the details of the reasons for setting a fixed target of one crore manuscripts under NMM, given
India's vast and diverse manuscript heritage across different regions of the country along with
criteria to determine which manuscripts are included or excluded;
(c) the details of the safeguards put in place by the Government to ensure the preservation and
protection of historic documents from any alteration or erasure or tampering; and
(d) the manner in which the accessibility and authenticity of historic manuscripts once digitized to
ensure that these invaluable resources remain reliable and available for research and public
reference?
ANSWER
MINISTER OF CULTURE AND TOURISM
(SHRI GAJENDRA SINGH SHEKHAWAT)
(a) 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.
(b) 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.
(c) 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.
(d) 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.
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