National Service Scheme (NSS) IIT Kharagpur

An eye camp was organized by NSS, IIT Kharagpur at Khelar on February 18 and 19, 2017 jointly with St John Ambulance Brigade, Kharagpur and Sankara Eye Hospital, Mukundapur, Kolkata.   A1 Biscuits and Lux Innerware of Kolkata helped organize the event as sponsors.   497 residents of Khelar Banpatna area, Ayma, Kashijora and Sholadahar villages were treated at the camp.   Prescription eye wear was distributed to more than 300 patients in the event without charge.   Of 82 patients deemed in need of surgical interventions, 40 were taken to Sankara Eye Hospital, Kolkata on March 27, 2017 – once again without charging them.   Transportation and the costs for the surgical procedure were borne by the hospital authorities.   Surgery for the remaining patients will be scheduled shortly. Photos:    

Rochish Manda, Kumar Aniket (Unit 1) and Sandeep Muzzalda (Unit 12) shared videos of the nukkad (street play) performances of December 5 at Khelar Annual Camp.  Here they are...  

Dev Burman (Unit 5) shared a video on review of their roadwork by Khelar residents.  A slightly edited version of the video can be found here...

Units 12 and 15 still conscientiously put in a few more hours trying finish their roadwork tasks.  Things didn't get completed and the decision was to come back to Purba Shikarpari and elsewhere to finish things up.  Then there was this plan of an inter-unit knockout football tournament.  That also could proceed only to the end of the first round - pre-quarterfinals - before the match officials and the players gave up and the quarterfinals, semifinals and the final were saved for some other time.  Then there was garbage clearance.  Only when the area started to look nice and clean folks started throwing around plastic wrappers, food waste and what not.  Then came some sentimental stuff in the afternoon that the annual camp apparently built bridges between participants although the fight for a lousy seat on the bus continued through the entire duration of the camp. Finally Professor Dibakar Dhara's point calculation revealed Unit 1 was the best in nukka...

While the quantum of work completed so far by the volunteers during the annual camp in 2016 has been impressive, roadwork were at virtual standstill at Dakshin Banpatna (Units 10, 13, 14 and 15), Library (Unit 11), Raipur (Units 7and 8) and Khelar (Units 5 and 6) - obsession of these units with street play ( nukkad ) performance kept them from extending their roads or improve the quality of their roadwork.  Watering and compaction of road fill continued at Raghunathpur (Units 2 and 4) and Seva Dal (Units 1 and 3) and fill (moorum) placement and culvert construction at Purba Shikarpari (Units 9 and 12).  Unit 3 got a water body adjacent to their place of work cleaned up and dug a composting pit as well.  The locals generally praised the efforts of NSS volunteers.  Two such feedback are shared with this post. A grand lunch was followed by nukkad performance by all 15 units covering a variety of social, political and environmental issues.  Annual camp participa...

Roadwork at Purba Shikarpari (units 9 and 12), Library area of Banpatna (unit 11) and Dakshin Banpatna (units 10, 13, 14 and 15) should have gotten a tremendous boost with the delivery of an additional 6 wheel barrows although the impact was somewhat nullified by an unusual obsession of several units (including unit 1 working at Seva Dal and units 2 and 4 working at Raghunathpur) with street play ( nukkad ) rehearsal. The afternoon session was also extremely productive except for the sad back-to-back losses of NSS cricket team at the hands of the youth's team of Khelar-Banpatna.   The first one of the two 8-over matches was basically a wash out with the loosing team managing a paltry 43 runs and the victors chasing the total at the cost of only 2 wickets with countless overs to spare.  Performance of NSS in the second one was better - only very slightly - despite the valiant wicket keeping by Professor Dibakar Dhara captured in several professional grade photographs ta...

Did anyone notice that it was the day of Haat - the weekly village farmers' market - at Khelar?  That was the reason for traffic jam and instances of road rage (who says road rage is only confined within city limit?) when the second trip buses were picking up Units 9.5 (half of unit 9 managed to catch a first-trip bus) -15 after it got dark.      The volunteers continued with their road repair work at their originally allocated locations.   The juggadu mindsets continues to show up all around.  Some volunteers, for instance, started using pipes lying at the panchayat office premises as road rollers in the absence of real ones.  The afternoon was interesting with inter-unit competitions with mock up drills on first aid administration and disaster management conducted by Messrs Asim Nath, Goutam Bankura, Anupam  Paladhi and Srinu of St John Ambulance Brigade.  Mr Goutam Bankura made a presentation to kick things off in the aftern...

Day 2 of the annual camp  exceptionally productive - even when one looks back at the record of NSS Annual Camps over the past several years.  But that was not the most interesting bit.  While all  Units worked very hard at building or repairing roads at Khelar, Banpatna, Purba Shikarpari and adjoining area in before lunch, mention must be made of the initiatives of Units 1 and 3. Unit 1 volunteers looked around for a force-multiplier to leverage their productivity.  They ended up hiring a large hand cart to boost their productivity.  They even jigged up a track across a construction trench for the hand cart fully loaded with moorum by laying the wooden planks borrowed from the construction crew, who dug the ditch across Unit 1 supply route.  A video is shared in this post on how Unit 1 broke through to the other side - literally. Unit 3, on the other hand, noticed a contaminated water well during the survey they conducted on Day 1.  Their dis...

The Annual Camp of NSS, IIT Kharagpur began at Khelar Panchayat Office premises withan inauguration ceremony presided over by Mr Pradip Pyne, Regitrar, IIT Kharagpur.  Mr Pradyot Das, Upa-Pradhan (Deputy Chief) of Khelar Anchal, Mr Amar Chakraborty, a Social Worker, who has been collaborating with NSS, IIT Kharagpur over the past several years were also at hand.  The local area was surveyed by NSS volunteers in the morning session.  A rally was taken out in the afternoon to raise social awareness and inform the locals about the upcoming programs planned during the week-long camp.  The unit leaders are requested to share pictures, movies, survey reports and area maps by sending emails mentioning their unit numbers to iitkgp.nss@gmail.com . Photos: Setting off from IIT Kharagpur for Khelar Inauguration of Annual Camp First day lunch Awareness rally Awareness rally Awareness rally Awareness rally Leaving Khelar for IIT Kharagpur P...