The National Archives of India

About National Archives of India (NAI):

• The National Archives of India is the custodian of the records of enduring value of the Government of India.
• Established on 11 March, 1891 at Calcutta (Kolkata) as the Imperial Record Department, it is the biggest archival repository in South Asia.
• It has a vast corpus of records viz., public records, private papers, oriental records, cartographic records and microfilms, which constitute an invaluable source of information for scholars-administrators and users of archives.
• The Director General of Archives, heading the Department has been given the mandate for the implementation of the Public Records Act, 1993 and the rules made there under, the Public Records Rules, 1997 for the management, administration and preservation of public records in the Ministries, Departments, Public Sector undertakings etc. of the Central Government.
• Located at the heart of New Delhi, the Department functions as an Attached Office of the Ministry of Culture.
• The NAI keeps and conserves records of the government of India and its organizations. It does not receive classified documents.

 

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Q1) How many regional offices and record centers of the National Archives of India are there in India?

The National Archives of India is the custodian of the records of enduring value of the Government of India and has one Regional Office at Bhopal and three Records Centres at Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Puducherry.

Source: Many ministries not sharing records’: National Archives head says no documents on 1962, 1965, 1971 wars