The National Archives of India is the repository of the non-current records of the Government of India and is holding them in trust for the use of administrators and scholars. It is an Attached Office of the Ministry of Culture. It was set up in March 1891 in Calcuttla (Kolkata) as the Imperial Record Department and subsequent to the transfer of the National Capital from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1911 it was shifted to its present building in 1926.
Shri K.R. Narayanan, then President of India, declared open the "Museum of the National Archives" to the general public on 6 July 1998. This Museum is a representative overview of the multifarious holdings of the National Archives, promotes a common man's interest in archival holdings. It has a Regional Office at Bhopal and three Record Centres at Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Pondicherry. The records holdings in the National Archives are in a regular series starting from the year 1748 A.D. These are in English, Arabic, Hindi, Persian, Sanskrit, Modi, Urdu etc., These records are on paper, palm leaf, birch bark, parchment etc. They are broadly of four categorie : Public Records, Oriental Records, Manuscripts and Private Papers and are a wonderful record of our rich history and culture.