NEW DELHI: Various departments of the Delhi government are handing over their old records to the Delhi Archives, which is one of the richest repositories of about 10 crore documents of historical importance, for digitisation and proper preservation. Recently, the transport department has also given a huge volume of 10 crore official reports and other papers to the Archives to initiate the process for their protection. With its rich archival heritage increasing manifold, the Delhi Archives has planned a new storage facility to stack them in climate controlled safe custody to ensure a longer lifespan with minimal damage or degradation. The transport department has already transferred a twoacre plot in Gadaipur near Ghitorni to facilitate the construction of the new record storage space.
“The transfer of land is complete. Soon, the construction may begin. As our archival stock is piling up, we need adequate space to keep the records properly. It (new store) was much needed as the transport department has recently provided about 10 crore documents,” said Sanjay Garg, head of the archives. The papers, microfilms, and digitised records are required to store in a climate controlled environment—temperature (15-20 degree Celsius) and 45-50 % relative humidity (RH) with ventilation and filtration system to remove atmospheric pollutants such as dust, chemicals, and micro-organisms.
“To maintain favorable conditions at the existing storage facility at Delhi Archives headquarters, we have made arrangements for round the clock power supply and backup,” said Garg. The project for digitisation and microfilming of four crore documents including orders, circulars, photos, and maps— started in August 2017. More than 3.70 crore pages have already been digitised and preserved. About 2.16 crore of them are available on its portal for the researchers and students.
Last year, a circular was issued requesting all government offices to transfer their entire records older than 25 years to the department of archives so that the process for their digitisation and preservation could be launched. The Delhi Archives has also recently acquired personal collections such as ‘jail diary’, letters, and other memorabilia of fifth president of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, which will also be available to the general public.
The collection was formally provided by Ahmed’s son, retired Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, former chief justice of Jammu and Kashmir HC in December. “Except the jail diary, all records would be available for researchers and other users. To use and check the content of the diary, we will need to take formal approval from the family. This was the condition on which we were provided the collection,” said Garg.