Patna, April 9 Bihar Chief Secretary Pratyaya Amrit on Thursday directed senior officials to form district-level committees to review and expedite the digitization of manuscripts under the ‘Gyan Bharatam Mission’.
Amrit chaired a high-level review meeting with district officials in Patna.
The ‘Gyan Bharatam Mission’, announced last year by the central government, aims to preserve and digitize ancient manuscripts.
According to a statement issued by the state’s art and culture department, rare manuscripts housed in government and non-government institutions, monasteries, temples, educational establishments, and private libraries are being identified and catalogued "at a rapid pace".
"All district magistrates should form 'Gyan Bharatam Mission Committees' and conduct regular reviews of the programme's progress," Amrit said.
They should also strengthen institutional collaboration with universities, museums, and private collectors to ensure wider participation, he added.
Bihar ranks fourth in the country with 4,71,802 manuscripts, while Rajasthan tops the list, the statement said.
Within the state, Madhubani district leads with 3,70,926 manuscripts, followed by Patna, Darbhanga, and Nalanda, it said.
Artificial intelligence-based technologies and cloud systems are being used to develop a national digital repository to enable editing, translation, and multilingual publication of rare texts, officials said.
Institutions such as Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, Khudabakhsh Oriental Public Library, and the Bodh Gaya Math have been identified as major clusters and coordination centres for the digitized preservation of manuscripts, they added.