800 dormant NSS units to be revived

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has decided to revive 800 National Service Scheme (NSS) units in the State that have been lying dormant since a long due to lack of support and inertia on the part of NSS coordinators.In a recent review meeting of NSS activities across the State, Higher Education Secretary Aparajita Sarangi stressed that all the dormant units need to be revived. There are 1,800 NSS units across the State.The meeting found that around Rs 5 crore of NSS fund belonging to units across the State is lying unused.Every unit has around 50 volunteers. So as many as 40,000 NSS volunteers are sitting idle as 800 units are inactive. A proposal was mooted to set up monitoring cells for the units under Plus Three colleges like that for Plus Two colleges.The meeting decided that an action plan will be drawn up to revive the dormant NSS units with active participation of  volunteers. It has also been decided to introduce new programmes under the scheme. The new programmes will be tailor-made for the NSS units and volunteers’ feedback taken into account before introduction. “A law student may not like cleaning a village. So a programme, where the volunteer gets a chance to educate people about law, should be devised,” said State Coordinator, NSS,  Ramesh Chandra Behera.The existing programmes will also be recast to draw more volunteers into NSS fold. A circular will be circulated among principals and vice-chancellors to take greater initiative and provide support to NSS activities so that the students can benefit from them.