The Printed Gazette Goes
THE Gazette of India was a sacred document almost with the status of the scriptures. A Law was a Law only when it was printed in the gazette and there is a class of Government servants known as Gazetted Officers. There was a time when gazetted officers would sign only in green ink! (Please also see THE GREEN INK CONTROVERSY - 09 12 2004)
Department of Publication of the Government of India was established in April, 1924 by the Imperial Government and the office was located in Kolkata.The Primary aim was to disseminate Government information to to the general public. Initially, this function was limited to Government's Reports only. Over the years, the horizons were widened covering sale and distribution of books and periodicals, and the office was shifted in the year 1932-33 to Delhi. The Department of Publication attained its separate identity, in the year 1973, under the name and status of Department of Publication. It is a separate subordinate Department of the Union Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.
The Department has the distinction of publishing over 63500 titles and there are live 62500 titles available in circulation. On an average, 360 titles are published every month and simultaneously, 10 titles go out for weeding out and the dispatch work on an average is 5500 packets for over 50000 books every month.
Gazette Notifications of all kinds are published and copies of Gazettes are sold by this Department.Old Gazettes documents which are required for support in the Courts of Law for ready reference are duly certified and sold by this Department. Gazette Notices for change of name, adoption of child, lost / destroyed / stolen are published and sold by this Department.
Gazette of India Notifications are published by this department and are printed from the Government of India Printing Presses regularly. This is an authorised legal document of Government of India.
Now this is history - all the printing and waste of huge mountains of paper are stopped.
It has been decided in consultation with Department of Legal Affairs to switch over to exclusive e-publishing of the Government of India Gazette Notification on its official website with effect from 01.10.2015 and to do away with the physical printing of Gazette Notification. The date of publishing shall be the date of e-publication on official website by way of electronic gazette in respect of Gazette Notifications. The Gazette Notification can be accessed and downloaded/printed from the official e-Gazette website i.e. www.egazette.nic.in free of cost .