The annual Budget of the Nair Service Society (NSS) for the financial year 2021-22 envisages an income and expenditure of ₹132 crore.
The 107th Budget of the community organisation, presented by its general secretary G. Sukumaran Nair through videoconferencing here on Thursday, expects an income of ₹26.25 crore from the capital sector and ₹105.74 crore from the revenue sector. It has also earmarked an expenditure of ₹45.30 crore and ₹86.69 crore for the capital and revenue sectors respectively.
The income expected in the capital sector is through grants under the RUSA projects to colleges; library and laboratory grants; and so on. The sources in the revenue sector, meanwhile, include the NSS development fund of ₹17.30 crore, ₹10.13 crore from the plantations and ₹37. 59 lakh from hospitals.
Under the capital expenditure head, ₹12 crore has been earmarked for construction and maintenance sector, of which a major portion will be utilised for the construction of the NSS convention centre at Perunna. While ₹3.61 crore has been set aside for construction and maintenance of aided schools and colleges, the health sector will get a cumulative assistance of ₹99 lakh.
The Budget also announced two new working women’s hostels at Attingal and Thrissur.
Dowry prohibition
Meanwhile, the meeting adopted a resolution demanding a strong implementation of the Dowry Prohibition Act with relevant amendments.
“While the Act defines all valuables transacted or agreed to be transacted between the two parties engaging in a marital relationship as dowry, the valuables gifted to a couple at the time of their marriage has been excluded from this definition. This indeed serves as a loophole to those awarding huge quantity of gold at the time of weddings. Hence, the Union government should amend the Act to include the offering of gold ornaments beyond a specific limit in the scope of dowry,” read the resolution. It also called for strong implementation of the Kerala Dowry Prohibition Rules - 2004, which enables the dowry prohibition officers to prevent the offences in connection with weddings. “Though the law empowers these officials to prosecute those violating the law, these are not being implemented strictly,” it observed.
Re-elected
The meeting re-elected P.N. Narendranathan as its president and elected nine members to the NSS director board.
