Denise Love, BACSA Projects Coordinator, reports on the successful completion of the BACSA-supported record digitisation project in Raniganj:
Asansol Heritage Research Group (Project Completion Report)
‘In April 2024 BACSA agreed to fund the digitisation of the records held by the Raniganj Wesleyan Methodist Church and sent a grant of £2143 to the Asansol Heritage Research Group to carry out the work. The Group is interested in preserving the colonial heritage of the Raniganj-Asansol area of West Bengal, which was a major industrial and railway centre in British India, and it sees the church’s records as vital evidence of this history.
the endangered condition of the church’s physical records.
‘This project has transformed fragile, handwritten registers into enduring, accessible, digital archives’. (Project Completion Report)
The project aimed to preserve endangered historical records by transforming physical documents into digitised formats. It was completed in March 2025 and the new formats were sent to BACSA. The project has contributed to the professional development of researchers and local university students and safeguarded the church’s records for the future.
of the Baptisms Register
(Project Completion Report)
Register records
(Project Completion Report)
As part of the agreed project AHRG has also measured the graveyard, counted the graves, prepared a map and produced a video and a final report.
We shall share the records with our sister organisation, Fibis, and will now consider with the church and AHRG any further initiatives relating to the cemetery, in particular its protection and its promotion locally as a community asset.’
Denise Love, Projects Coordinator
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