Piql transforming judiciary archives in India

The High Court of Madhya Pradesh needed an innovative solution for long term storage of historical legal documents. Piql provides unmatchable service for the data storage requirements of the judiciary sector. No other solution can provide a solution that as affordable, appropriate or efficient in long-term digital storage.

CHALLENGE

High Courts in India collect large volumes of valuable data that must be stored for long-periods of time. Much of this data has been paper-based with many courts now looking to digitise their paper storage due to rising storage costs.

The High Court of Madhya Pradesh needed digitisation and preservation of more than 50 million A4 pages of historical court cases.

For historical legal data that needs long-term storage, migration-based technology not only isn’t suitable but presents long-term problems. Paper based storage solutions also become very expensive over the long term and the sheer volumes makes accessibility and searchability challenging.

The High Court wanted to store the information in visual format on film, like it is done in the traditional microfilm market. Digital metadata and indexing features were also needed to enable fast search and retrieval.

Piql delivered a high-quality product to an unparalleled price. Both we and our client are very pleased with the result.

SOLUTION

Piql was engaged via Tata Consultancy to provide this service. Piql’s offering was unique and the only solution that was migration-free, offline and suitable for long-term storage.

No one in the traditional microfilm market can match the production speed and efficiency of Piql’s industrial- grade system, or our affordability for long-term archival.

Film is stored offline, limiting electricity consumption, and is space-efficient compared to paper. Furthermore, our solution enables fast search and retrieval of individual documents. We do this by automatically extracting metadata and indexing information from the files, in combination with manually entered metadata.

Our solution also provided much needed data security and integrity. The resilience and longevity of piqlFilm was also of critical value to the High Court.