National Service Scheme (NSS) IIT Kharagpur

On August 12, 2017, 533 first year students were welcomed into the NSS program.  They were apprised of the origin and constitution of NSS at the national level; codes of conduct of NSS officials and students participating in the program; working area, organization and administration of NSS at IIT Kharagpur; and associated formalities, e.g., the position of NSS in the extra academic activities (EAA) program of IIT Kharagpur and grading policy.  The Program Officers, who head the fifteen units of NSS IIT Kharagpur were also introduced to those coming into the program. Professor Tapas Mondal of McMaster University, Canada also addressed the students on that day to introduce to them the technique of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), a medical procedure that often becomes useful in saving lives of individuals suffering from cardiac arrest.  He also gave a hands on training to the students and other attendees as he frequently does in many countries.  Interestingly, h...

NSS organized their Annual Blood Donation Camp of at the Old Badminton Court of Technology Students Gymkhana on March 18 , 2017 in partnership with Kharagpur Voluntary Blood Donors Organization.   In the event 149 units of blood were collected by the Blood Bank of Bankura Sammilani Medical College Hospital .   The event would not have been possible without active help and participation of Technology Students Gymkhana – Professor Somesh Kumar, President, TSG and Mr Mandal and Sudheer, Sports Officers, TSG, in particular – and the Continuing Education Program of IIT Kharagpur.   Thanks are also due to the donors for their support in making the event a success. Donors’ certificates can be picked up from SR Sengupta Foundation Engineering Laboratory, the building between the Biotechnology and Cryogenics buildings, on any weekdays between 9:00a and 5:30p.   Before dropping by please set up an appointment by calling 9775550857 or 9647182769. 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...

NSS wants to thank the IIT Kharagpur community for participating wholeheartedly in the TSG-NSS Blood Donation Camp of November 19, 2016 at the Old Badminton Court of Technology Students Gymkhana.  In the event 58 units of blood were collected by Ashok Laboratory Centre for Transfusion Medicine and Clinical Research, Kolkata.  The event was facilitated by Blood Connect, Kolkata.  The camp would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of Ayush Gurjar, G-Sec, Sports and Games, Technology Students Gymkhana of IIT Kharagpur, in particular, and others including Spandana Sinna, also a G-Sec (S&G) of TSG and volunteers of NSS, several NSS officials and staff. 

NSS, IIT Kharagpur conducts a drive every year to collect old but usable clothes that get replaced by new ones during festival time. These are distributed among needy in the neighbourhood villages( Link ). Yesterday, on the auspicious birthday of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, we got an opportunity to collect thirty three old chairs and distribute them in eight village schools. We are thankful to Sponsored Research & Industrial Consultancy (SRIC) officials of the institute for supporting this. Earlier we had the opportunity to take the support of SRIC in providing muri (puffed rice)-making machine to self-help group of a tribal village and also taking up an agricultural project on crop diversification in another village ( Link ). In this post, we present a visual walk-through of how young NSS volunteers carried out the work starting from loading those chairs in the truck to distribution in the village schools. NSS faculty were there alongside. We had an opportunity to have a bri...