The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) in its Report to the Nation (2006-2009) made ten major recommendations on libraries. In pursuance of this, a High Level Committee to be called as National Mission on Libraries (NML) has been set up by the Government of India
The composition of the Committee, terms of reference, tenure, management support and method of operation has been elaborated in the Gazette of India (Part I Section I Number 20) issued by the Government on 4th May 2012*. Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture will be the nodal agency for the National Mission on Libraries for administrative, logistics, planning and budgeting purposes.
The first meeting of the NML* was held on 18th May, 2012. In this meeting certain decisions have been taken for improvement in the library sector. These include: national census of libraries, content creation and setting up of community information centres, up-gradation of the existing public libraries, school and college libraries and use of school libraries as community libraries, and improvement in library and information science education training and research facilities.
NML has also decided to set up Working Groups with domain experts to prepare an implementation plan. The Mission would be primarily an advisory body to endorse the plans and programs prepared by the Working Groups. The following Working Groups have been set up by the Mission.
The NKC was set up by the Prime Minister with the challenging mandate to transform India of the 21st century into a knowledge society. The objective of NKC was to advise the PM on matters relating to knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination and knowledge application within the diversity of the Indian scenario.
The Prime Minister, in this inaugural speech for the National Knowledge Commission on 2nd August 2005, referring specially to libraries, said “Public libraries are an extremely important element of the foundation of a knowledge economy”. NKC recognized that one major pervading area that needs immediate and sustained attention is the Library and Information Service (LIS) sector.