e-Pothi : Online Cataloguing of Manuscripts of Odisha State Museum bagged the prestigious international Award “The Manthan Award – 2014 (South Asia and Asia Pacific)” at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on 04.12.2014.
The objective of e-Pothi is to facilitate researchers, students and scholars across the Globe to get online access to the rare manuscripts of Odisha, spread awareness among the people about the Indian culture and heritage.
This is an online cataloguing system, where the visitor can access the digitised manuscripts like a catalogue, can search based on author, subject, category and get access to the manuscripts. There are around thirty seven thousands of manuscripts with 27 categories i.e. Veda, Ganita, Ayurveda, Jyotisha, Sanskrit Purana, Tantra etc. The visitor can get access to the first and last page of the individual manuscripts and if he/she wants to see/read complete set for research purpose, then there is a facility of online purchase through e-Payment of Credit/Debit/ATM Card/Internet Banking(on process)
With the active support of Hon’ble Minister, Tourism& Culture, Sri Ashok Kumar Panda, this initiative is taken with National Informatics Centre (NIC) as knowledge partner to provide rare manuscripts to the common man at their door step. Dr Arabinda Padhi,IAs, Commissioner-Cum-Secretary, Tourism and Culture Department is taking all efforts to take this project to International. The application is developed by the team headed by Dr R N Behera, Sr. Technical Director along with other team members Sri A.K.Pattanayak, PSA and Mrs. Namita Senapati, PSA under the guidance of Sri S.K.Panda, DDG & SIO, Odisha.
Various dignitaries present in the award ceremony were – Sri S. B. Dissanayake, Hon’ble Minister, Higher Education, Govt of Srilanka, Dr. Rajendra Kumar, Joint Secretary (e-Governance), DeitY, Govt. of India, Mr. Lourent Le Danols, Attache- Development Cooperation, Delegation of European Union to India , Dr Amir Ullah Khan, Senior Policy Advisor, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ms. Chat Garcia Ramilo Project Leader, APC Women's Programme Manager, Manila,Phillipines, Ms. Francesca Feruglio, Director of Programs & Operations & Co-founder, Nazdeek and Mr. Osama Manzar, Founder & Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation.
