India’s National Cultural Audio Visual Archives (NCAA), representing the country’s cultural diversity in audio-visual form, has been certified as the world’s first trusted digital repository as per ISO 16363:2012 standard by the UK-based Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body ltd. (PTAB).

launched in 2014, the NCCA, which is hosted by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), aims to identify and preserve the cultural heritage of India available in audiovisual form through a process of digitisation and making it accessible to the people.

Over 23,000 hours of unpublished audiovisual recordings have already been digitised. By the March-end, a corpus of 30,000 hours of unpublished, non-commercial audio & video recordings will be made online at http://ncaa.gov.in/repository, out of which approximately 15,000 hours are already hosted online along with contextual metadata, said a senior official from the Culture Ministry.

The NCAA pilot digital repository was developed in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation by C-DAC, Pune.

This is being done as these materials of historic values are in imminent danger of being lost in the absence of systematic and modern preservation technologies, lack of awareness and proper upkeep, as well as the fragility of the medium they are stored in, said the official.

He said that plans for the next phase is to integrate about three lakh hours of audiovisuals materials, a corpus estimated based on a scoping survey conducted in 25 cities across the country, on this platform over the next five years.

The Minister of State for Culture, Dr Mahesh Sharma said, “I congratulate IGNCA for this remarkable achievement. The Digital India initiative of the Prime Minister, aimed at connecting rural India with high-speed internet networks and improving digital literacy will boost the accessibility of the NCAA up to the remotest corner of the country and help preserve India’s rich culture throughout its length and breadth.”