The National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities has been launched with the major objectives to prepare National Register and set up state level database on built heritage, sites and antiquities, promote awareness and sensitize people about such heritage, extend facility for capacity building and help in synergizing between various organizations on heritage issues. The Mission has completed two years on March 19, 2009 with Archaeological Survey of India as its nodal agency.
Initiatives
• With a view to create to the National Register on built heritage and sites, National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities is compiling relevant information as available from secondary sources. So far more than 32,000 villages containing information on unprotected built heritage and sites have been compiled in the template developed by the Mission.
• The Mission has taken up the work of digitization of records of registered antiquities through Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts that would form finally the database of antiquities.
• The documentation of antiquities as part of National Register in a prescribed template developed by the Mission is in progress. Presently the antiquities that are lodged in various site museums and sculpture sheds of Archaeological Survey of India have been taken up for documentation.
• Indian Archaeology- A Review, an Archaeological Survey of India publication that contains invaluable information on built heritage, sites and antiquities have been digitized by the Mission and placed in public domain through the official website of Archaeological Survey of India. Besides, various antiquarian legislations of different states are being uploaded on ASI website to make them available to the public.
• The Mission is developing softwares through NIC on the various templates that have been prepared by the Mission for creating database on built heritage and sites as compiled from secondary sources, centrally protected monuments, web-based village level database.
To implement the various activities of the Mission on state level, Implementation Committees have been formed (so far about 20) under the chairmanship of the respective State Secretary (Culture).
National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities and its Initiatives
