THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Gazetteers, an archive containing authentic data of the state’s social, cultural, historical, geographic and scientific heritage, including weather patterns and its wildlife, will now be available online with e-Gazetteers. The electronic archives of Kollam, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kannur, Kozhikode, Palakkad and Malappuram districts and the gazetteer supplements for Kollam, Ernakulam, Thrissur and Kozhikode were released on Friday at the Kerala Council for Historical Research Annexe in Kesavadasapuram.  

The documents will now be available for free on the KCHR website www.kchr.ac.in. The documents were released by former state editors of the gazetteers department S Raimon and P J Cherian. In the meeting, KCHR director Sanal Mohan led a discussion on gazetteers. “The Gazetteers was started during British rule in the country to document the life and times of the period. It has helped in maintaining the authenticity of documents with respect to the colonial era,” said Sanal Mohan. P J Cherian said, “The origin of The Gazetteers and the colonial interests which gave birth to it should be observed closely in the contents of the archives.” Malayinkeezhu Gopalakrishnan and Jaya C Nair also took part.