Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad   

Iran, A.P. sign MoU

HYDERABAD: The Governments of Andhra Pradesh and the Islamic Republic of Iran on Tuesday entered into a memorandum of understanding for the repair, restoration and digitisation of about five crore documents in the State Archives.

Minister for State Archives Anam Ramnarayana Reddy and Consul-General of Iran Hossein Ravesh looked on as Andhra Pradesh State Archives Director A.L. Kismat Kumar and Director, Noor Microfilm Centre, New Delhi, Khajeh Piri signed the Memorandum of Understanding.

Mr. Reddy told presspersons later that the cost of repair, restoration and digitisation worked out to about Rs. 40 per page.

While the cost for handling five crore documents worked out to Rs. 200 crore, it was not as if every page needed to be worked upon, he said. Hence the project cost would work out much lesser.

The project was expected to take about three years and the entire cost would be borne by the Iranian Government.

Two four-man committees were set up and entrusted with the responsibility of prioritising the documents that needed to be worked upon.

The first committee would comprise technical experts, mostly former officials of the Archives Department of the rank of Deputy Director and others, the Minister said. The other committee would have Poturi Venkateswara Rao, V. Ramakrishna, Vaikuntham and Tirumala Rao.

Mr. Ravesh said the project cost was initially estimated at Rs. 60 crore and that, given the linguistic and cultural connections that Iran shared with Andhra Pradesh, it was their privilege to be associated with the project.

While the funding would be from Iran, the State government’s contribution would be by way of providing space in the AP State Archives to install the hardware and other equipment.

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