"Around 40,648 gazettes published in last 78 yrs digitalised"
Awaiting Govt's final approval to convert into e-gazette: Michael Achom
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, April 05 2025: General Administration Department (GAD) secretary Michael Achom has informed that the final approval of the government with regard to conversion of gazette notifications into e-gazette is still being awaited.

Directorate of Printing and Stationary (Government Press) organised a one-day seminar on the topic of 'The Manipur Gazettes and its importance' at Classic Grande, Chingmeirong here on Saturday.

In his speech, GAD secretary Michael Achom said that apart from government employees, every citizen needs to be aware of the importance of gazette.

He continued that a lot of inconvenience is faced when accessing the gazette after digitisation, as it is not user-friendly.

one-day seminar on the topic of 'The Manipur Gazettes and its importance'

In this regard, he appreciated the suggestions offered by the IT Department.

However, the delay in rectifying the same is part of an on-going process to convert all into e-gazette, he added.

Informing that an application has been made with the help of NIC to convert gazette into e-gazette, he said that the final approval of the government is being awaited.

"The focus is on making the gazette into e-gazette instead of printing a physical copy of the same and then digitalising it.

Once the gazette is converted into e-gazette, it can be emailed to those subscribe to the same or the officials concerned," he informed.

Michael urged all to avail the benefits of the seminar, adding that it would wrong to assume that gazettes are just plain government papers.

Presiding over the seminar, Printing and Stationary director A Romita said that gazette is an important legal document of the government, which could be used as reference for many matters including judicial matters.

She explained that there are two types of gazette - ordinary gazette (Manipur Gazette), which is published every Wednesday, and Manipur Gazette Extraordinary, which is published every day.

If there is any urgency, the gazette can be published on general holidays.

Stating that the gazette is similar to Cheitharol which was used to keep court records, Romita said that the gazette is government records.

She informed that there are gazettes over 50 years old in the library of the Directorate.

To prevent any loss of records, they are being digitised and e-archive.

The project, which has been taken up for 2-3 years, was formally launched by the former CM in February last year and the public can access the gazettes via egazette.mn.gov.

So far, the Department has digitised around 40,648 of the total two lakh gazette notifications of Manipur Gazette and Manipur Gazette Extraordinary, she conveyed.

During the seminar, which as attended by IT secretary Th Kirankumar; Information Technology director N Deben and GAD/DP deputy secretary A Rangina Chanu as guests of honour, a short documentary on 'Printing & Stationery Manipur' was also presented.

Meanwhile, during the technical session, which was moderated by GAD secretary Michael Achom, MU Law Department head Prof Y Prema-nanda, DMU associate professor Dr Arambam Noni Meetei, UNI Imphal chief bureau N Satyajeet and MU Library and Information Science head Prof Ch Ibohal spoke on the topics of importance of gazette and law, political history and importance of gazette, gazette and media reporting, and gazette and library science as resource persons.