The National Archives of India is an Attached office of the Ministry of
Culture. Its mandate has been enshrined in the Public Record Act, 1993 and
Public Record Rules, 1997. Besides preserving the Public Records of Government
of India for posterity, its acts as a Nodal Agency of the Central Government to
co-ordinate, regulate and supervise the operations connected with the
administration, management, preservation, selection, disposal and transfer of
Public Records.
The Director General of Archives has been entrusted
with the responsibility to supervise and coordinate all operations connected
with the Administration, Management, Preservation etc., of public Records as
laid down in the Public Records Act. These duties involve:-
·
Supervision,
management and control of the Archives; ,
Acceptance for deposit of public records of permanent, nature after such
period as may be prescribed;
·
Custody, use
and withdrawal of public records;
·
Arrangement,
preservation and exhibition of public records;
·
Preparation of
inventories, indices, catalogues and other reference media of public records;
·
Analyzing,
developing, promoting and coordinating the standards, procedures and the
techniques for improvement of the records management system;
·
Ensuring the
maintenance, arrangement and security of public records in the Archives and in
the offices of the records creating agency;
·
Promoting
utilization of available space and maintenance of equipments for preserving
public records;
·
Tendering
advice to Record creating Agencies on the compilation, classification and
disposal of records and application of standards, procedures and techniques of
Records’ management;
·
Survey and
inspection of Public Records;
·
Organizaing
training programmes in various disciplines of archives administration and
records management;
·
Accepting
records from any private source;
·
Regulating
access to public records;
·
Receiving
records from defunct bodies and making arrangement for securing public records
in the event of national emergency;
·
Receiving
reports on Records’ management and disposal practices from the Records Officer;
·
Providing
authenticated copes of, or extracts from, public Records;
·
Destroying or
disposal of public records;
·
Obtaining on
lease or purchasing or accepting as gift any document of historical or national
importance.
As a Special drive, following special
time bound Projects have been undertaken by NAI for documenting and preserving
records since 2010.
1.
Project on
Survey, Inspection, Appraisal & Transfer of Non current Public Records of Ministries and Departments after 1947.
2.
a)
Preparation of Reference Media of Public Records
b)
Preparation of Reference Media of Private Papers
3. Security
Microfilming, Positive making and Digitization of Public records and
converting the same into analog images
in microfilm using Archive Writer.
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AD/DB