Documentation of Indian Policy-Making Process

The National Archives of India is an Attached office of the Ministry of Culture. Its mandate has been enshrined in the Public Record Act, 1993 and Public Record Rules, 1997. Besides preserving the Public Records of Government of India for posterity, its acts as a Nodal Agency of the Central Government to co-ordinate, regulate and supervise the operations connected with the administration, management, preservation, selection, disposal and transfer of Public Records.

The Director General of Archives has been entrusted with the responsibility to supervise and coordinate all operations connected with the Administration, Management, Preservation etc., of public Records as laid down in the Public Records Act. These duties involve:-
· Supervision, management and control of the Archives; ,

Acceptance for deposit of public records of permanent, nature after such period as may be prescribed;

· Custody, use and withdrawal of public records;

· Arrangement, preservation and exhibition of public records;

· Preparation of inventories, indices, catalogues and other reference media of public records;

· Analyzing, developing, promoting and coordinating the standards, procedures and the techniques for improvement of the records management system;

· Ensuring the maintenance, arrangement and security of public records in the Archives and in the offices of the records creating agency;

· Promoting utilization of available space and maintenance of equipments for preserving public records;

· Tendering advice to Record creating Agencies on the compilation, classification and disposal of records and application of standards, procedures and techniques of Records’ management;

· Survey and inspection of Public Records;

· Organizaing training programmes in various disciplines of archives administration and records management;

· Accepting records from any private source;

· Regulating access to public records;

· Receiving records from defunct bodies and making arrangement for securing public records in the event of national emergency;

· Receiving reports on Records’ management and disposal practices from the Records Officer;

· Providing authenticated copes of, or extracts from, public Records;

· Destroying or disposal of public records;

· Obtaining on lease or purchasing or accepting as gift any document of historical or national importance.
As a Special drive, following special time bound Projects have been undertaken by NAI for documenting and preserving records since 2010.
1. Project on Survey, Inspection, Appraisal & Transfer of Non current Public Records of Ministries and Departments after 1947.

2. a) Preparation of Reference Media of Public Records

b) Preparation of Reference Media of Private Papers

3. Security Microfilming, Positive making and Digitization of Public records and converting the same into analog images in microfilm using Archive Writer.