Context:
The Prime Minister of India launched the revamped National Manuscripts Mission under the title of ‘Gyan Bharatam Mission’.
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- It aims to survey, document, and conserve over one crore manuscripts across institutions, libraries, museums, and private collections.
- The revamped mission led by the Culture Ministry will likely function as a new autonomous organisation, distinct from the earlier structure.
- Expert consultations to redesign the mission began in October 2024, National Mission for Manuscripts.
- To accommodate the ‘Gyan Bharatam Mission’, budget allocation for the National Manuscripts Mission (NMM) has been hiked from ₹3.5 crore to ₹60 crore.
National Manuscripts Mission
- NMM was originally launched in 2003 under the aegis of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
- It has digitised Three Lakh Fifty Thousand manuscripts so far in different repositories.
- The Mission is preserving all types of manuscripts across the nation, scribed on different materials with the help of its Manuscripts Conservation Centres.
- The NMM has till date, prepared a metadata of 52 lakh manuscripts and roughly over three lakh titles have been digitised. However, only one-third of them have been i.e out of 1,36,490 manuscripts, 77,152 manuscripts are available for public access.
- The Ministry of Culture under the aegis of Gyan Bharatam Mission is committed to expand NMM outreach through public exhibitions or digital platform extensively.