Punjab Information Technology Board in collaboration with Punjab Archives and Libraries Wing, S and GAD launched a web portal consists of digitized data of historical record from 17th century at the Tomb of Anarkali, Civil Secretariat The digitized data covers the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial era in South Asia holding more than Seven Million files of unique documents and rare books. Secretary Punjab Archives & Libraries Tahir Yousaf and Chairman PITB Azfar Manzoor inaugurated the portal.
The Website developed under the project of Digitization, Preservation and Modernization of Punjab Archives aims to digitally preserve Five Hundred Thousand (500,000) pages of historic documents present in the Punjab Archives. The portal will safeguard this material digitally and reduce the need to displace the fragile original documents, minimizing their wear and tear. The scanned items will be high resolution images in an uncompressed format.
The web portal carries the information and digitized documentation about societal norms, caste and lineal descent information, the formulation of municipal and urban policies, land settlement and many more. These records would not only preserve our heritage but also make it easily accessible for general public. This information will further be linked with places like Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia. The Web portal can be accessed at archives.punjab.gov.pk.