The Eastern Zone Records Centre of National Archives of India, Bhubaneswar was set up on 1 March 1996 to cater to the need of central government organizations located in four eastern and eight northeast states. Subsequently in 2007 the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands was also added to its jurisdiction, making it the centre with largest territorial jurisdiction. The centre was also set up with a special objective of collecting and preserving various palm-leaf manuscripts of Odisha found with different private individuals, temples and monasteries for which the state has the singular distinction.
The centre was first started in Odisha State Archives. Subsequently from 1997 to 2012, it functioned in two rented buildings first in Bhaktamadhu Nagar and thereafter in Satabdi Nagar. From 17 December 2012, it is functioning in its own building in an area of about 2.5 acres of land in Madhusudan Nagar, a prime location in the city. Realizing the importance of the centre, the Government of Odisha provided this piece of land on ex-gratia basis. It is four kilometers from Bhubaneswar railway station, seven kilometers from Biju Pattnaik Air Port, three kilometers each from Odisha State Secretariat and Utkal University and one kilometer from Odisha State Archives.
The documentary heritages of the centre consists of about 70,000 files, registers, loose documents, correspondences and palm leaf manuscripts of both government and private records. Besides it has also a rich collection of rare books and journals, Gazette of India and periodicals in English, Odia and Bengali all of which were acquired as gift. Apart from acquisition, preservation and conservation of records and providing research facilities to the scholars, the centre also regularly pursues various records management programmes like survey, inspection and appraisal of non-current records in different central government organizations, tendering advice to them and compiling/vetting their records retention schedule. It also organizes various outreach programmes like exhibition, workshops and quarterly talk for arousing the archival awareness.
Contact detail:
Assistant Director of Archives
National Archives of India
Records Centre (Eastern Zone)
M/79, Madhusudan Nagar
Unit-4, Bhubaneswar-751001
Telephone +91674 2391042/43
Fax +91674 2391043
E mail: nai
bsnl [dot] in; rc [dot] bbsr-archivesgov [dot] in; nai [dot] ornic [dot] in