National Service Scheme (NSS) IIT Kharagpur

Road work continued at Dakshin Banpatna, Raghunathpur, Seva Dal and Purba Shikarpari areas.  The groups at Purba Shikarpari were unable to pinch a wheel barrow since the beginning.  Their progress has therefore been somewhat compromised so far.  They finally managed to borrow a tricycle trolley from a local.  This will hopefully let them finish their work on time.  Local residents are also helping by lending their tools and implements, participating physically in the road works and sparing words of encouragement for the hardworking volunteers. In the afternoon Mr Kartik Chatterjee, an expert on sustainable agriculture from Shaktigarh, Burdwan with several years of hands on experience, talked to 15 farmers from the Khelar area interested to learn the latest techniques in sustainable agriculture.  The local farmers were so impressed with what Mr Chatterjee had to present, they are planning to visit Mr Chatterjee's agricultural farm in Burdwan.   T...

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...

Kashijora (Unit 13) Moorum roads in Kashijora, the village adopted by Unit 13 suffered damages due to heavy rains and indiscriminate dumping of plastic waste and consequent blocking of natural drainage.   Unit 13 volunteers repaired to the roads in mid September.   They also campaigned among the residents to convince them not to continue with their practice of indiscriminate garbage dumping, a root cause of the road damage. Balarampur (Unit 8) Unit 8 volunteers also undertook road repair at Balarampur on October 1, 2 and 22.   Their work was in the Arashini area of Balarampur.   NSS, IIT Kharagpur thanks Mrs Mita Sutradhar, the local Panchayat Member, and Mr Chandan Chakraborty, the Anchal Pradhan for arranging raw materials for the work and actively managing it.

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.