The annual budget of the Nair Service Society (NSS) presented on Tuesday by general secretary P.K. Narayana Panicker provides for an income and expenditure of Rs. 75.25 crore.
The budget, 27th in a row being presented by Mr. Panicker, has earmarked Rs. 10.24 crore for development activities in colleges. This includes Rs. 2 crore for the proposed Mannam Institute of Management Studies at the MG College campus. The budget also provides for Rs. 15.84 crore for development activities in the NSS schools.
The NSS plans to start a tantric school at Chengannur. Sreepadmanabha Vaidika-vidyapeetham envisages to impart tantric and pooja training to youngsters from the community.
The budget lays stress on the functioning of the Social Service Department and the newly formed Human Resource Development Departments. According to the budget, Mannam Social Service Societies have been formed in all the 57 thaluk unions and empowerment and social development programmes are being implemented through these Societies.
Focused efforts in women’s empowerment are being undertaken by these societies, Mr. Panicker said.
According to him, 10,109 women self-help groups have been formed so far with a combined membership of 1.86 lakh and have a combined savings of Rs. 54.15 crore. Efforts are on to increase the number of SHGs to 15,000. They will be turned into entrepreneurial groups directly under the thaluk societies so that they would be able to engage in self-employment schemes like medicinal plants farming, vegetable farming, bee keeping, fish farming catering services etc.
The Human Resource Development Department will focus on counselling, career guidance, youth guidance and so forth.
NSS, in association with MILMA, has started 412 dairy units. During the current year, plans are on for starting 1000 more units in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode districts, according to budget proposals.
The budget session also elected nine persons to the vacancies in the director board. They are P.V. Neelakanta Pillai (Chirayinkeezh), P.N. Narendranathan Nair (Pathanamthitta), K.M. Rajagopala Pillai
(Mavelikkara), P. Balakrishna Pillai (Kottayam), A.K. Bhaskaran Nair (Vaikom), M. Sangeeth Kumar (Thiruvananthapuram), V. Raghavan (Thaliparamba), P.S. Rajan (Kunnathunadu) and K.R. Sivankutty (Pandalam).
NSS president P.V. Nelakanta Pillai chaired the session. The session also ratified the decision made by the director board on 25 April, 2010 to amend Section 52(b) which provides for the posts of vice president and assistant secretary. As per the amended version, the post of ‘assistant secretary’ has been changed to ‘Secretary’. G. Sukumaran Nair, who had been holding the post of assistant secretary, will now be secretary.
