Heritage project gets Rs 1 cr for preservation of iconic colliery

Kolkata: European History scholars are showing keen interest on the rich heritage of Ranigunj and Asansol, the railway and industrial towns set up during the British period.

Both Ranigunj and Asansol railway stations have been declared as heritage stations. On February 3, 1855, a train plied between Howrah and Ranigunj. The East Indian Railway Company had introduced railway network in India and the first train plied between Bombay (now Mumbai) and Thane covering a distance of 32 km in 1853.

Professor Edward Hollis, deputy Dean of the Faculty of Edinburgh College of Arts visited Ranigunj in December last year and visited the area along with Caul Gilling, a painter and photographer from Edinburgh and Kamalika Basu, a well-known urban historian. They held meetings with the Asansol- Ranigunj Heritage Research Group comprising Professor Shantanu Banerjee, Kazi Nazrul University, Surojit Chatterjee and Hemanta Mondol, a school teacher and a research scholar in History.

A project titled An Unfinished Biography of Raj Railway Town has been taken up jointly by the Edinburgh scholars and the Asansol Ranigunj heritage group.

Meanwhile, the Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority (ADDA) has sanctioned over Rs 1 crore to preserve Narayankoori and jetty ghat where Prince Dwarkanath Tagore had set up the first native-owned colliery and introduced the state-of-the-art method to excavate coal. Narayankoori is situated close to Mathura Chandi temple off the Mejia bridge. The first well to excavate coal has been declared a heritage structure.

Tagore had initially set up a company called the Carr Tagore Company with William Carr. Later, he dissociated himself with Carr and set up The Bengal Coal Company, the first colliery to set up by an Indian in 1832.

The bungalow of Tagore that lies in shambles will be conserved.

Professor Hollis also visited Bankura and Purulia. The members of the Asansol Ranigunj Heritage group had visited Edinburgh in November, 2019, to take part in the round table at the South Asian Symposium hosted by the American Council for Asian Art Symposium where they presented their paper on Asansol Ranigunj heritage conservation. It may be mentioned that the Indian Railways is maintaining several heritage structures including the Durand Institute.

Mondol said proper planning should be made for conservation of heritage structures and the documents.