Abhilekh Patal

Description

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Context

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has praised “Abhilekh patal” a portal with over 1 Crore Pages of Historical Records of the National Archives.

About the Portal

Abhilekhis a Sanskrit term used in India for records since ancient times and Patal is a Sanskrit word meaning a board, platform, or a surface.
A combination of both these words has been adopted as an acronym for Portal for Access to Archives and Learning.
It is a full-featured web-portal to access the National Archives of India’s reference media and its digitized collections through the internet.

About the National Archives of India

The National Archives of India is the repository of the non-current records of the Government of India and is holding them in trust for the use of records creators and general users.
It is an Attached Office of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

History

The genesis of the National Archives of India may be traced back to the year 1860 when Sandeman, the Civil Auditor, in his report stressed the need of relieving the offices of congestion by destruction of the papers of routine nature and transfer of all valuable records to a ‘Grand Central Archive’.
However, things took a concrete shape in 1889, when Professor G.W. Forrest of Elphinstone College, Bombay was entrusted the job of examining the records of the Foreign Department of the Government of India.
As a result, Imperial Records Department (IRD) came into existence on 11 March 1891 which was located in Imperial Secretariat Building at Calcutta (Kolkata). Professor G.W Forrest was made its Officer in Charge.
Subsequent to the transfer from Calcutta (Kolkata) to New Delhi in 1911, the Imperial Records Department (IRD) shifted to the present building in 1926.
After independence, the IRD was rechristened as the National Archives of India.
At present National Archives of India is an attached office under the Ministry of Culture and has a Regional Office at Bhopal and three Records Centres at Jaipur, Puducherry and Bhubaneswar.