ISLAMABAD, Oct 18 (APP):President Dr Arif Alvi Monday emphasized the need for expediting the process of digitization and preservation of national archives, particularly records and documents of national and historic significance.
He asked the Cabinet division to constitute an advisory board to provide the guidelines for the effective management of archives and implement the process of preservation of historical records at the earliest.
The President gave these directions at a meeting on the improvement of the National Archives of Pakistan (NAP), at Aiwan-e-Sadr.
The meeting was attended by Additional Secretary Cabinet division Abdul Sattar Khokhar, DG NAP, Naveed Alauddin, Kamran Lashari, experts on archiving from provinces and senior officials of the Government of Pakistan.
Additional Secretary Cabinet Division Abdul Sattar Khokhar, updated the meeting about the initiatives, taken on the direction of the
President, for strengthening and modernizing NAP. It was informed that PC-I for strengthening and modernizing NAP had been approved to digitalize and preserve four million pages of Government and historical record and restoration of 30,000 brittle documents.
Highlighting the significance of preserving the government record and other important documents, the President said that such documents were valuable assets of the nation which needed to be preserved and digitized for future generations.
He underlined the need for the safe-keeping of records of national and historic significance, particularly the gazettes of federal and provincial governments, private collections of historic value, royal orders of the Mughal period and other important documents of the post and pre-independence era.
It was worth stating that the primary functions of NAP were to acquire, arrange, preserve, conserve, micro-film, digitize and disseminate records of historical importance.
