Policy Update
Tuba Athar
Background
‘Abhilekh Patal’, a search portal of the department of archives, was launched in March 2015 as a digital reference platform for historical records. The digitisation of historical records was launched to make the rich archival treasure accessible to scholars and users. The department has also initiated the process of Digital on Demand (DOD) with the implementation of the E-payment gateway.
The Abhilekh Patal is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Abhilekh’, signifying records of ancient times, and ‘Patal’ representing a platform or a surface. It is a digital repository thoughtfully curated by the National Archives of India (NAI). This platform serves as a gateway to India’s historical legacy, offering a treasure trove of meticulously preserved documents and records. Significantly, the acronym ‘PATAL’ is also an embodiment of its purpose – ‘Portal for Access to Archives & Learning’.
National Archives of India (NAI)
Established on 11 March 1891 at Calcutta (Kolkata) as the Imperial Records Department, the National Archives of India is the custodian of the records of enduring value. 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 other users of archives.
The Director General of Archives, is the head of the Department, who is responsible for the implementation of the Public Records Act, 1993 and the rules made thereunder, 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. Presently, it is a subordinate office of the Ministry of Culture and has one regional office in Bhopal and three record centers in Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, and Puducherry. The Department celebrated its 125th year of establishment during 2015-16.
Image source: https://www.abhilekh-patal.in/
Mission and Purpose
At its core, Abhilekh Patal is a digital initiative with a mission to provide easy access to India’s historical archives, comprising an astounding 7 million records. As part of its continuous efforts, they are converting these records into a digital format to ensure their access in the modern era. Its core purpose is to ensure the effortless accessibility of historical records, reaching across geographical borders to engage a diverse global community.
While it naturally appeals to history enthusiasts, it equally extends a warm welcome to individuals driven by a desire for learning and exploration. Here, researchers, students, and those seeking knowledge can explore primary source materials that illuminate events, people, and societal shifts. Abhilekh Patal Portal is a full-featured web portal to access the National Archives of India’s reference media and its digitized collections through the internet. It is a ‘work-in-progress’ and both the reference media and the digital data will be regularly augmented.
Functioning
The portal provides a user-friendly interface where records are classified for convenient search. There are nine categories of documents, such as INA papers, Library Collection, Microfilms, Oriental Records, Other Archives and Institutions, Private Papers, Public Records, and Reference Tools.
The records are available in multiple languages, including English, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Gujarati, French, Marathi, Dutch, Malayalam, Kannada, etc., separately, and many documents are in more than one language. The portal provides a list of both digitized as well as non-digitized records, where the latter could be digitized on demand. Under the curated collection section, there are ‘Oman Collection’ documents. The users also have the facility to sort records by date. The index of the 7 million records can be found under the ‘Reference Tools’ collection.
Offerings
The NAI team has been converting the content of these digitized reference tools into a structured database and has so far created the metadata entries for approximately 3 million records. NAI has digitized and uploaded 15 million pages from the 300,000 records. NAI is on a mission to digitize and bring its entire collection, comprising approximately 7 million records and 300 million pages, to Abhilekh Patal.
For the convenience of the users, the NAI has introduced a niche Page on Demand (POD) Service to order pages from the Records, which are completely digitized and uploaded on the portal. Records that are present in the structured database but not yet digitized can be requested online through the Digitize on Demand (DOD) service.
To obtain a copy of the records that are present in the ‘Reference Tools’ but not yet in the structured database, users may contact the research room in charge for further details. Abhilekh Patal serves as the gateway to India’s past, facilitating immersive learning experiences and nurturing a profound connection to the nation’s vibrant heritage, serving as a bridge that spans from history to the digital age of today.
NAI remains firmly committed towards improving ease of access to our historical heritage and endeavours to eliminate paperwork and filling up forms for this purpose in the future. It has launched an extremely ambitious program for digitizing all its records, which has already resulted in hosting almost 8.81 crore pages on Abhilekh Patal. NAI endeavours to completely digitize its records over the next two years to facilitate wide outreach and easy, anytime, anywhere access to its holdings.
Performance and Impact
As of 28 June 2025, the portal hosts 95720 microfilms, 23759 private papers, and 5283379 public records. The portal has 30,328 registered users, with 5.8 million reference media, 2.4 million digitized records, and 113 million digitized pages.
The portal releases very important, historical, and sensitive documents that were otherwise inaccessible. For example, the digital copies of 100 files relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose were released into the public domain on January 23, 2016, to meet the long-standing public demand to access these files to facilitate scholars to carry out research. As of 2025, it has nearly 30,000 registered users from over 200 countries and has recorded over 20 lakh hits so far.
The performance of the portal was praised by the Prime Minister when the portal recorded hits of over 1 crore pages (PIB, April 20, 2023). And on the occasion of its 135th Foundation Day, the National Archives of India (NAI) reduced the user charges for downloading documents from Abhilekh Patal in order to facilitate access to records. The portal charges 0-20 images free of cost and Rs 5 per image when the requirement is above 100 images. For physical printouts, charges had been reduced from Rs 5 per page to Rs 2 per page. However, the portal charges more from foreign scholars and researchers.
Emerging Issues
- Digital Divide and limited accessibility: Many citizens, researchers, and students from rural or underserved areas lack access to high-speed internet or the digital literacy to effectively use the platform.
- Language and Metadata Limitations: A large proportion of records are in English or old scripts (Persian, Sanskrit, etc.) without proper translations or transliterations, limiting accessibility for non-experts. Metadata is often inconsistent, incomplete, or not user-friendly.
- Limited Search Functionality: Search algorithms are basic, which lack semantic search or filters that could make it difficult to locate specific documents or themes. Moreover, the absence of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) for many handwritten documents hinders text-based search.
- Copyright and Access Restrictions: Some important documents are not available due to legal, institutional, or bureaucratic hurdles concerning ownership or sensitivity.
- Understaffing and Lack of Trained Archivists: There is a shortage of trained personnel to digitize and catalog archival materials, which delays the uploading and organization of documents.
Way forward
Several practical solutions can improve the portal’s accessibility and user engagement. A lightweight mobile app version can increase accessibility in rural areas. Multi-lingual support for both the website interface and record descriptions, integrating Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) for better searchability, even of handwritten documents.
Collaborating with academic institutions, tech firms, and international archival organizations for technical support, funding, and research integration could provide more support and fulfill funding needs. There is a good need for capacity building, for which training and hiring more professional archivists, historians, and IT experts are needed to accelerate digitization and curation. Moreover, encouraging internship programs for students of history, library science, and digital humanities could contribute to digitization and indexing.
References
- https://www.abhilekh-patal.in/Shared/Home/AboutUs, retrieved on June 29, 2025
- https://www.india.gov.in/website-abhilekh-patal, retrieved on June 29, 2025
- https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/governance/abhilekh-patal-now-hosts-over-1-crore-pages-of-historical-records-of-national-archives/99640677, retrieved on June 29, 2025
- Press Information Bureau. (2023, April 20). PM praises “Abhilekh patal” a portal with over 1 Crore Pages of Historical Records of the National Archives. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1918136
- Press Information Bureau. (2025, March 11). National Archives of India (NAI) reduced the user charges for downloading documents from Abhilekh Patal. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2110199
- https://nludelhi.ac.in/abhilekh/, retrieved on June 29, 2025
- https://nationalarchives.nic.in/about-us, retrieved on June 29, 2025
About the contributor- Tuba Athar is a research intern at IMPRI. She is pursuing a PhD from the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Acknowledgement- The author sincerely thanks Aasthaba Jadeja and other IMPRI fellows for their valuable contribution.
Disclaimer- All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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