The two-day 47th meeting of the National Committee of Archivists (NCA) stressed upon the need for leveraging the full potential of digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for preserving and sharing the rich documentary heritage of the nation.

The meeting was held at Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC), Srinagar. Delegates from Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh participated in person, while those from Haryana and West Bengal attended in virtual mode, an official spokesman said on Wednesday.

During the two-day meeting, the delegates deliberated on various aspects that are required for revitalizing the archives administration and records management system in their respective State and UTs, and underscored the need for leveraging the full potential of the digital and AI technologies for this purpose.

They also agreed on adopting a focused and concerted approach for preserving and sharing the rich documentary heritage of the nation, and for making their archival resources easily accessible through web-portal.

The delegates also sought the guidance of the National Archives of India in formulating the guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), with regard to digitization of records.
It was also agreed that the NCA should also explore new areas such as integration of Oral Archives and non-traditional archival sources into public archives in NAI, state and UTs.

In his address, Arun Singhal, Director General of Archives and Chairman and Convener, NCA, emphasised the need for democratization of the valuable information contained in public and private records held in various state and union territory archives across India by making it easily accessible to the users through the Internet.

He added that collaboration amongst the archival institutions in India is vital to provide unified search results on any given topic, on which archival material might be available in different repositories.

Singhal laid a 10-point roadmap for development of archives in the country, viz. Know what you have, tell the world what you have, keep it carefully, make access easy, digitize your collection, repair and conservation wherever there is need, have a web portal, reach out to the public, standardize operating procedures, discover and collaborate.