Balia Gram Unnayan Samity(BGUS) is a grass root level voluntary organisation situated at Haripal block in Hooghly district. It has an operational coverage of ten villages namely - Balia, Jigra, Ichapur, Harishpur, Kashipur, Sonatickry, Bahirkhand, Sibarampur, Dullya and Narayanpur. 

The head office
BGUS operates from its head office at Bahirkhand which is at a distance of 8 km from the nearest significant station Tarakeswar. The office operates with an emplyee strength of 20 odd people in various hierarchial positions.Infrastructure comprises of a two storeyed building which has the amenities of a regular office.

Members
The founder members are still involved with this organisation since 1979 and 60% of the members have been associated with this organisation for at least 10 years. This organisation is self sustaining group of people as many relatively new members had significant help from this organisation at various stages in the past. A list of names of all notable members of this group can be found in appendix 1.

History 
The organisation started off as Netaji club in its initial days that can be in the 1960s. In year 1979 it got renamed into BGUS and got registered formally as an voluntary society under "West Bengal Society Registration Act,1961". It had constant pteronage of CCF from year 1986 till 2005. Because of change in operational policies of CCF the funds allocated to BGUS has been gradually brought down.We were told that the policy of CCF for which they withdrew thier funding for BGUS was that they would not support an organisation for more than 10 years.
 Even though it had the petronage of CCF, this organisation had never been associated with religious activities or influence.

Activities
Even though BGUS has numerous projects, it focuses mainly upon social and educational reconstruction along with health and employment issues. 

What was noticed in the short visit, their activities can be described  as follows,

SHG:
They have involved around 1271 members in 94 SHGs(Self Help Group). The fund generated by these SHGs have reached 17,35,000 Rs till date.

Agro Service:
The Balia Agro Development Society(BADS) provides shallow pumps two of which we had seen on our way. They also provide tractors at 70-80% lower rate than the market rate. They have paddy collection centre from where they can provide paddy during the crisis period at a lower price.

In their Head office at Bahirkhand, they established a soil testing laboratory in the year 1998 with the technical support of IIT, Kharagpur and financial support of CCF. They had also received the grant of the apparatus and chemicals amounting to Rs. 10,00,000 from Govt of West Bengal.

Education:
The sponsorship programme of CCF, enabled children to have primary and higher education. BGUS itself provides training to children ranging from 4 years to 15 years. We visited one of thier educational centres where they provide coaching to the children in two batches. They also provide meal to the children which can be arranged beside the centre only. 
They have a library in the office building which has a reasonably large collection of books ranging upto honours level and these books are being used by the people of other villages also. The library provides the facility to study by lending books as well as reading there itself.

We have come to know from the records that some benefited persons like Sudip Patra and Krishna Samanta, are well established now. Sudip is a graduate in Bio-Science and also underwent B.P.Ed training. He is a teacher in a Govt. aided secondary school. His wife and his brother, who were also benefited by BGUS, are also teachers in primary schools.
Pradip Dey, who is from a seven member family where monthly income was barely 300 Rs. and family profession was weaving, now works as a Sub Assistant Engineer under Public Works(Road) Department (PWD) of West Bengal Govt.
Krishna Samanta completed Junior Basic Training and currently serving as a primary school teacher.

BGUS wants ASHA to help continue thier educational activities the details of which can be found in the proposal.     

Health:
BGUS has built 1418 latrines for the families in their operational area. We had noticed such latrines in almost every house of Bahirkhand village. They also established tube-wells which ensures safe drinking in the locality. The members of BGUS work as volunteers for the "Pulse-Polio" programme in the nearest health centers and hospitals.

Other Issues:
BGUS plays a vital role in women empowerment and social upliftment. They arrange programmes on health & hygiene, adult education, family life education, tailoring for women. Strong presence of women in different committee meetings could be evident in various photographs we saw there.

   
We were shown a project report prepared by Rural Development Centre,IIT, Kharagpur, who stayed in BGUS operational area for 3  months and had a research on 'Impact Evaluation' of BGUS activities for educational and social development in rural areas. We found the report very convincing and very encouraging for BGUS. 

They also keep track of mortality and morbidity rates, literacy rates etc through their record keeping system which we were shown.

As a whole, we suppose, our visit to the site was a successful one considering it as our first visit and we were  pretty much impressed. The detailed examination of their core activities needs more visits of course.