W e l c o m e t o t a t h y a b a n g l a

Information & Cultural Affairs Department
Information Directorate > PHOTO ARCHIVE

Photo Archive

Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal inaugurated a Photo Archive under Information & Cultural Department on 09.08.2006. at Writers' Buildings, (3rd floor). Since Independence, Photography wing has been entrusted with photo documentation of the major events, especially the visits of VVIPs in the state etc. This wing is also assigned with the job of compiling and preserving the negatives & photographs of those events.

There are more than 5 lakh negatives & photographs in the Photography wing of the I & CA Deptt. The job of sorting out the negatives & photographs and transferring those to CDs are going on in full swing. More than a thousand negatives and photographs have already been digitalised. The State Government has plan to link the entire Photo Archive through its official website www.wbgov.com. This will help researchers and interested persons throughout the country and abroad to get an access to the Photo Archive through internet. Uploading of some important photographs in the home page of the aforesaid website is in vogue. An Exhibition on Kolkata comprising photographs from the Archive will be organised from 15th August to 22nd August, 2006 at Gaganendra Pradarshashala, Kolkata.

At present the Photo Archive comprises of 10 segments. These are: (a) Archaeology (b) Personality (c) Old newspapers (d) Kolkata (e) District profile (f) Activities of different State Govt. departments (g) Natural calamity (h) Tourism (i) Wildlife and (j) Current events. In each segment there are many sub-segments. To cite an example, in the Personality segment one may find different sub-segments like (1) The visit of the Presidents of India to the State ( From Dr. Rajendra Prasad to Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam), (2) The visit of the Prime Ministers of India to the State (From Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr. Manmohan Singh), (3) The visit of International Dignitaries to the Satate (Mrs. Roosevelt from USA, Kruschev & Bulganin from USSR, General Gyap from Vietnam, Nelson Mandela from South Africa, Pope John Paul-II from Vatican City and others), (4) Some important events attended by the Governors of West Bengal (From Chakrabarty Rajagopalachari to Gopal Krishna Gandhi), (5) Some important events attended by the Chief Ministers of West Bengal (From Dr. B. C. Roy to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee). The Kolkata segment reflects an interesting comparison between old Calcutta and modern Kolkata. In Tourism segment photographs of some attractive tourist spots of the State such as; Darjeeling, Dooars, Murshidabad, Digha, Sunderban etc. have been incorporated. The photographs from different Districts & Sub-divisions and from different State Government Departments and Undertakings are being collected to enrich the Photo Archive.

To preserve the negatives and photographs properly, the Photo Archive has been air-conditioned. Hi-end computer, negative scanner, printer, digital camera etc. have been purchased to modernise the Photo Archive. For this purpose an amount of Rs. 9,03,670/- has been spent in the financial year 2005-06 with assistance from National Archives of India.In the financial year 2006-07 National Archives of India had sanctioned Rs 5,00,000/ for the modernisation of Photo Archive .