Panaji (Goa) Government proposed to construct modern State-of-the-art facility to house the department of archives and archaeology within next two years.

Minister for Archives and Archaeology Vijay Sardessai today made his maiden visit to the department located at Mala, as he took charge of the portfolio.

Speaking to media persons post visit, Sardessai said that Goa has a distinction of having the oldest archives in Asia and government priority is to preserve and protect it. “When we talk about Goenkarpon, we need to know that Goa’s heritage is in its archives. The records are oldest and therefore priceless. Government priority becomes to protect these archives,” he said.

“There may be some international mafias’ who try to destroy the archives. It has happened in the past in other places and we cannot allow this to happen in Goa. We cannot allow history to repeat itself,” Sardessai said.

Minister informed that government intends to build state-of-the-art facility. Government will have to allot a land. Department requires 6000 sq mtrs of built up area.

He proposed to set up the facility either at St Inez, Taleigao or Dona Paula.  

He said that government will also give priority to digitization of the old records.