The Bihar government has planned conservation measures for important and confidential historical paper documents for a better and long-lasting life.
According to the people familiar with the matter, one crore files and folios at the Bihar State Archives (BSA) in Patna and at its regional centres in Bhagalpur, Darbhanga and Bettiah, will be given chemical cleaning treatment, deacidification and tissue lamination.
These files and folio contain Mughal age Firmaans and the land records, including that of Raja Todarmal, one among the Navaratnas of Emperor Akbar, the confidential reports, letters and correspondence and notifications issued during the Colonial era and the reports related to the freedom movement struggle, said police cited above.
There have been in the collection of documents scores of confidential reports related to the freedom struggle leaders of Babu Kunwar Singh, Mahatma Gandhi and his Champaran Satyagraha, Subhash Chandra Bose and the speeches that he made at several places in Bihar, Abul Kalam Azad and many others.
тАЬThese documents are rare and have been important evidence of our socio-political history. These have helped us understand the way Mughal rulers used to implement the land rules. Besides, through these documents, we have also been able to perceive the socio-cultural and political implications of GandhiтАЩs visit to Champaran and his Satyagraha during the British period,тАЭ Suman Kumar, director, BSA, said.
He added that even though these documents have been preserved at the archives in the best possible ways, papers tend to get pale and brittle over a period of time and need conservation measures.
тАЬWe invited conservation experts for this purpose. Tenders inviting the agencies working in this direction have been floated and they have been asked to submit the entry before June 6 this year,тАЭ he said.
The official said that the BSA was also getting the files and folio digitised. тАЬWritten materials need to be preserved in digital format also,тАЭ he said.
Altogether 41 lakh folios from the collection at BSA in Patna, have already been digitised, Kumar said, adding тАЬLast year we got 78,000 folios digitised. And works on the rest of the files are also going on.тАЭ
