MPs demand to protect documents of national importance

The members of the Delegated Management and Government Assurance Committee of the National Assembly have called for protecting the archives and documents of national importance.

During an interaction on Thursday with the Director General of National Archives on protection of such documents, Chair of the Committee, Maya Prasad Sharma, pledged to coordinate between the local and province governments for the protection of archives adding that they should be established as our treasure.

Sharma said that facilitation would be done by writing to the different ministries for allocation of budget and human resources, and other required support.

Sharma hoped that the Archive Protection Act related bill is passed from the National Assembly and is now in the House of Representatives, and added that most of the issues of this sector would be resolved after the amendments to the Act.

MP Gopal Bhattarai argued that important documents that are more than 25 years old should be in the National Archives while MP Bina Pokharel commented on the sorry state of the National Archives.

Likewise, lawmaker Nar Bahadur Bista and Mohammad Khalid called for sufficient budget and human resources for the protection of artifacts in the National Archives.

However, some lawmakers of the Committee expressed their concerns about the non-implementation of the directive given in the past for the smart management of the National Archives.

The lawmakers also said that the National Archives should be made resourceful and asked the institution to learn from the international good practices.

Director General of the National Archives, Saubhagya Pradhananga, urged the Committee members to establish the record protection programme as the national pride project.

On the occasion, he shared that the decisions of the Council of Ministers and vital records of the Federal Parliament Secretariat have not been received at the National Archives.

"The duplicate copies should be sent to the National Archives even if the main copy is not available," Director General Pradhananga said.