Noting that India's civilisation is more than 5,000 years old, the President said many of the manuscripts were yet to be recovered, deciphered and analysed. More importantly, an expert team should be created to analyse those manuscripts, he said and suggested setting up of a school to undertake this task.
"Digitisation of old manuscripts is a national mission. We should see to it that all schools, colleges and universities digitise their libraries in their own native language and connect to the outside world in the next four years," he said.
According to officials, the lab is aimed at conserving, digitising and disseminating manuscripts of India and would assist in creation of a national digital manuscripts library by the National Mission for Manuscripts.
