In her budget speech, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about conserving India’s manuscript heritage, on February 1, 2025.
| Photo Credit: ANI

The Union Budget 2025-26 announced a special mission for the survey, documentation, and conservation of India’s manuscript heritage. Launched as the ‘Gyan Bharatam Mission’, it intends to cover more than one crore manuscripts.

The ‘Gyan Bharatam Mission’ is for undertaking the “survey, documentation and conservation” of India’s manuscript heritage lying with academic institutions, museums, libraries, and private collectors, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech.

National Manuscripts Mission

To accommodate this new initiative, the budget allocation for the National Manuscripts Mission (NMM), whose aim is to identify and document manuscripts and make the manuscript heritage accessible across the country, has been hiked from ₹3.5 crore to ₹60 crore.

The Hindu had reported last October that the Union Ministry of Culture was set to “revive and relaunch” the National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) and was mulling the formation of an autonomous body to help preserve ancient texts in India.

Presently, NMM is a part of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. It was set up in 2003, but had not taken off as expected.

Welcoming the move, Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said that the new mission “announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today will enable Bharat to preserve and protect the invaluable wisdom and knowledge held by these manuscripts found across the country”.

Culture Ministry allocation

The overall allocation for the Culture Ministry has been increased by approximately ₹100 crore with a total outlay of ₹3,360.96 crore as against the revised estimate of ₹3,260.93 crore in the current fiscal.

Out of this, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has been allocated ₹1,278.49 crore against ₹1273.91 crore allocated in 2024-25 which was revised to ₹1191.99 crore. A total of ₹156.55 crore has been allocated for national libraries and archives, ensuring the maintenance of historical records and documents, while museums such as the National Museum and the National Gallery of Modern Art will receive ₹126.63 crore to enhance cultural preservation efforts.

Funds for organising events to mark centenaries and anniversaries and international cultural collaborations have seen a sharp decline.