National Service Scheme (NSS) IIT Kharagpur

Unit 7 covers a lot of ground, literally and figuratively.  Unit 7 volunteers teach at schools at Upar Kenthia and Benapur some 10-14 km away from IIT Campus.  They are also at hand arranging refreshments for school students and other participants of the celebrations of Independence Day and Republic Day on campus or for doctors at the voluntary blood donation camps organized by NSS.  They also participate in road repair works at villages like they are seen doing in a few recent photographs accompanying this report at Rangametia. Photos:      

Units 3,7,8,9,12 and 13 have been repairing roads in Rangametia on weekends since March 19, 2016.  Over four Saturdays and Sundays they managed to repair about 500 meters of road connecting the village with Rakhalgerya.  Abhijeet Lincon - a medical doctor and a master's student of SMST - was kind enough to be at hand at Rangametia during the event.  Professors A Deb, BM Manoj and PP Srivastav, and Dr MP Rajak organized the work and ensured safety of the participants.  NSS IIT Kharagpur acknowledges the help extended by Lily Soren, the local Panchayat Member and the authorities of Rangametia Primary School in facilitating the program.  

In Rangametia and Porapara village units, the senior students (2nd year) had an additional responsibility this month. They had to introduce 1st year students to the village. In addition, they had to introduce the new faculty-in-charge, the new program officer :-) in respective places. Of course, past and present program officers are extending all help. The previous program officer of Rangametia village unit completed his three year term last session and is now associated with us as our resource person. The previous program officer of Porapara village unit has assumed greater responsibility to serve NSS, IIT Kharagpur as Program Coordinator. Both ably led the team to make a considerable in-road in respective villages. Each team  won the mind and heart of villagers by their self-less service. The new session saw continuation of the good work there with new program officers leading from the front. Here are few pictures of activities of the month by these two units. Teaching assis...

Ravinder Singh Guguloth, Group Leader from Rangametia village reports:  I am very happy to be a part of NSS. As a volunteer, it was a great experience for me throughout the NSS course, interacting and understanding the society. In the first year of my course, we were assigned the work of surveying ration card, drinking water facilities. Convincing people was very difficult as they didn’t seem to believe in the government functionary or process. It seemed that there was a wide gap between the people and offices of the government. ( However, exposure with villagers was limited as it was confined to weekly visits. There may be more than what was visible on surface on welfare activities taken up by Govt. offices. )    As a group leader I tried my best to involve, all volunteers in the work every week. Our Program Officer, Saumen Hajra sir’s guidance has been very crucial. In the last semester our group had undertaken the activity of surveying sanitation fac...

Soladahar is the most underdeveloped village under Gopali Gram Panchayet in the neighbourhood of IIT kharagpur. The complaint from Panchayet was that the village is unorganized and thus no development work can be done there. For example, in last monsoon the Panchayet people were not allowed to conduct any survey in the village who wanted to assess the extent of damage. They were told either you help all or none. On hearing this, NSS, IIT Kharagpur started an effort to organize the village youth and generate confidence in themselves. The village club was revived. Sports materials were donated. Then the village youth took the responsibility of organizing a one day sports meet which was mentored and supported by NSS, IIT Kharagpur. The meet was held on 30.10.2011. The gram Panchayet member was present in the prize distribution and was overwhelmed by the change. After the meet he, NSS official and village youth discussed together future development plan. Vigyan-Vivek members of IIT Kha...