Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Madhya Pradesh Government has identified 3.73 lakh old manuscripts, books and documents in possession of its different departments for digitisation.
The project is being handled by the Directorate of Archaeology, Archives and Museums under the Gyan Bharatam Mission launched by the Centre to preserve old documents for posterity. The directorate will be the nodal agency.
Survey work has begun in the state under the guidance of district collectors. After this, a door-to-door campaign, Har Ghar Dastak, will be launched to identify manuscripts hidden in private collections and monasteries and temples, and then to preserve them. The work is estimated to take six to eight months. Conservation will begin after the manuscript donation programme.
The team responsible for scientifically conserving manuscripts will receive high-level training in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to facilitate the reading of complex scripts. Most manuscripts may be in extinct languages and translations will be provided by experts. To ensure success of this mission, state government departments have been given responsibilities. Since this is a major project, the Union Ministry of Culture stated that the campaign would be carried out in association with the Centre of Excellence (Dr Hari Singh Gour University, Sagar).
Urmila Shukla, commissioner, Directorate of Archaeology, Archives and Museums In the first phase said, “We are digitising manuscripts and old documents in possession of the government. We will begin work on digitising the manuscripts and old documents with private collectors once we receive a detailed Standard Operating Procedure from the Government of India.”
