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NSS lays stress on housing project

FUNDS ALLOCATION: NSS general secretary P.K. Narayana Panicker presenting the annual budget for 2008-09 at Perunna on Saturday.

PERUNNA: The annual budget for 2008-09 presented by NSS general secretary P.K. Naryana Panicker on Saturday envisages an income and expenditure of Rs.54.45 crore.

Presenting his 25th budget in a row, Mr. Panicker stressed the need for launching the housing project called Grihasree. The project would address the housing problems faced by members of women self-help groups (SHGs), he said.

Stressing the need to strengthen the Social Service Department, which oversees various welfare and development

activities of the NSS, he said 7,080 women’s self-help groups had been registered under the 56 Mannam Social Service Societies last year. Efforts were on to register another 3,000 SHGs during the current year and increase the number of membership to two lakh from the present 1.26 lakh, he said.

He said the NSS hoped to commence productive endeavours worth Rs.160 crore during the year through the SHGs.

Last year, works worth Rs.40 crore were taken up, he said. These business initiatives would focus on agriculture

and agriculture-based enterprises, he said. Efforts were also on for the formation of a federation of SHGs so that agro-based industrial units could be started. Food processing was a focus area in this regard, he said. The NSS would also take the leadership in setting up a marketing mechanism for the products produced by the SHGs, he said. The Mannam Jayanthi celebrations of 2009 will also mark the emergence of the Dhanasree units in a big way. Mr. Panicker said the NSS was taking steps for setting up a Thantric Vidyapeeth to train pujaris. The NSS has 5,052 ‘karayogams’ whose cumulative worth has been put at Rs.120 crore.

Pay revision for employees at the NSS headquarters was on the anvil, he said and added that Rs.25 lakh has been earmarked for the purpose.

Kerala Congress (B) leader R. Balakrishna Pillai was elected to the NSS Director Board. He is the only new face among the nine who have been elected to the Board. The session also re-elected Mr. Panicker as general secretary and P.N. Ravindranathan Nair as treasurer. The meeting of the newly constituted Board held in the afternoon re-elected G. Sukumaran Nair as assistant secretary. NSS president P.V. Neelakanta Pillai presided.

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