Prayagraj: The digitisation of rare manuscripts has begun at the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan under the Ministry of Culture’s Gyan Bharatam Mission, marking a significant step towards preserving India’s rich knowledge and literary heritage.An MoU for the project was earlier signed in New Delhi in the presence of Union culture minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat by Hindi Sahitya Sammelan’s senior official Kuntak Mishra and ministry’s joint secretary Samar Nanda. The project aims to survey, document, digitise and conserve more than 1 crore manuscripts across the country.Mishra said that the digitisation process has already commenced at the Hindi Museum, where around 1,700 pages were preserved in digital form. On average, a single manuscript contains nearly 100 pages. He added that manuscript holders from across the state can visit the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan to get their collections digitised.He further informed that director of the Gyan Bharatam Project Anirban Das and regional coordinator Sridhar Barik will visit the Hindi Museum to review the progress of the digitisation work. The inspection aims to assess the quality and pace of the preservation process.According to Mishra, digitisation will ensure long-term protection of these invaluable manuscripts while also making them easily accessible to researchers, scholars and general readers. He said the initiative would play a vital role in safeguarding ancient texts, rare literary works and historically significant documents that form an integral part of India’s intellectual tradition.Officials said the Gyan Bharatam Mission is a nationwide initiative of the culture ministry to preserve India’s manuscript wealth through modern technology. By creating digital archives, the mission seeks to prevent damage, loss and deterioration of rare manuscripts while expanding public access to the country’s vast literary and knowledge resources.
