National Service Scheme (NSS) IIT Kharagpur

A block of 4 public toilets is under construction for the last few months at Nachna.  While the fund for construction is from Thakurdas Foundation, all stakeholders are working shoulder to shoulder with NSS IIT Kharagpur to see the project through.  The Panchayat is pitching in this endeavor by sinking a bore well to ensure water availability at the toilet block.  The bore well has also been equipped with a submersible pump, a water tank and a water line.  The water tank was donated by IIT Kharagpur.  Other equipment, fittings and fixtures and plumbers are paid for through another eternally funded project.  The locals are donating labor once again without charging the toilet project funds.  NSS volunteers and faculty members from IIT Kharagpur are also donating their time by physically taking part in construction activities.  Regardless, the project is chugging along.  Locals are happy with the progress and are excited to participate in the development.  Visitors to this blog are awar

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 nukkad (followed by Units

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 participants and a good number of

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 taken by Pro

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.   The volunteers cleaned up the c

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 afternoon. Photos: Road repair Road repair by

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 discussion with the locals indicated that