As many as 17 lakh pages of archival records have been digitised and another 4.7 lakh Persian documents conserved as part of a collaborative effort between the Noor International Microfilm Centre (NIMC), affiliated to the Cultural Counsellorship of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Telangana State Archives and Research Institute (TGSARI).
While the project has different phases, the latest saw digital images of 3,08,122 Persian documents relating to manuscripts and Awarjah (administrative or revenue record), along with five volumes of draft English catalogues from the period of Shah Jahan, which were handed over to the Telangana State Archives on Friday.
According to the State Archives, the milestone coincided with the visit of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran to India for the BRICS Summit and marks another stage in cultural cooperation between the two countries.
The TGSARI and the Centre began their collaboration by means of a Memorandum of Understanding that was entered into in 2022. The scope of work was the identification, conservation, restoration, cataloguing and digitisation of historical Persian records at the State Archives.
Zareena Parveen, Director, Telangana State Archives and Research Institute, appreciated the Centre’s expertise. She pointed out that the State Archives houses millions of historical records, many of them in ornamental Persian and requiring urgent conservation and digitisation.
She described the conservation and digitisation work undertaken by the Iranian institution as remarkable and said that a three-month grace period had been granted to the Noor International Microfilm Centre to complete the remaining work and hand over the project outputs.
The Telangana State Archives houses about 4.3 crore historical documents, including nearly 3.3 crore Persian documents, Ms Parveen said. The collection is of considerable importance for research into the history of the Deccan, covering the Bahmani, Adil Shahi, Qutb Shahi, Mughal, and Asaf Jahi periods.
