The 3rd batch of 25 declassified files relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose were released online on web portal www.netajipapers.gov.in by Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (I/C) and Civil Aviation in National Archives of India here today. Addressing on the occasion, the Minister said that the Government will soon set up a Memorial for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the heart of Delhi to fulfill the long pending demand for it. He said that the release of declassified files on Netaji is a continuing process as it meets continued public demand to access these files and also facilitates research scholars and students to carry out further research on the doyen of the freedom movement.The present batch of 25 files consists of 05 files from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), 05 files from Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and 15 files from Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) pertaining to the period 1956 to 2009.It may be recalled that first lot of 100 files relating to Netaji, after their preliminary conservation treatment and digitization, were put in the public domain in web portal www.netajipapers.gov.in by the the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi on 23 January 2016, on the occasion of the 119th birth anniversary of Netaji. The second lot of 50 files were released online on web portal by Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (I/C) and Civil Aviation on 29 March 2016.
These many files having passed the scrutiny of the specially constituted Committee having experts from the field of Archives which looks into the aspects such as:
1. To ascertain the physical conditions of the files and carry out necessary repair and conservation wherever needed, through Conservation Unit.
2. To verify the quality of digitization for enabling the digitized records to upload in the web portal ‘www.netajipapers.gov.in’.
3. To check if there are any duplication in the files.
are being released on the internet for use by the researchers and general public.
It may further be added that in 1997 the National Archives of India had received 990 declassified files pertaining to the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) from the Ministry of Defence, and in 2012, 1030 files/ items pertaining the Khosla Commission (271 files/ items) and Justice Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry (759 files/ items) from the Ministry of Home Affairs. All these files/ items are already open to the public under the Public Records Rules, 1997.