Presidents Report on 19th Annual General Meeting on 2017.

I extend my warm greetings and best wishes to all members and their families on the occasion of Annual General Meeting and Re-Union of Old Boys Association of Sainik School, Goalpara (OBASSG). I am particularly grateful to our distinguished guest Sri Hiren Chandra Nath, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Guwahati City, who has kindly consented to grace the occasion.

It is indeed a great honour and privilege for me to be the President of OBASSG. At the same time, I am aware of the enormous responsibilities I have in hand to take the association to greater heights.

As an alumni of the one finest residential school of the North East, it is our scared duty to contribute whatever way possible for all round improvement of the school. We should always remember that we owe a lot to our alma mater. While as an organisation we are doing our best for improvement of the school, at the same time I am very happy to note that many Ex-Students are contributing to the school at individual level. It will be difficult to name all such silent warriors; however, I would like to particularly take the names of Timir Das, Bipul Sarma, Sarat Ojha, Dr Karuna Barman, Dinesh Das, Utpal Bayan, Jagadish Nath, Dr Bharadwaj Gogoi, Loken Das etc.

The General Secretary of OBASSG, Sri Girija Barman will subsequently give out major activities of the OBASSG for the last one year. However I would like to focus on some important issues as under:-

(a) Permanent Building. In spite of best efforts for last decade or so, we have not been able to acquire a suitable land to enable us to establish a full fledged office, transit accommodation as well as for training facilities for cadets of our school (as well as other students) for various competitive examinations. Acquisition of land and subsequent construction of a permanent building should be our Key Results Area (KRA).

(b) Pressure Group. OBASSG needs to develop as a Pressure Group so that we can strongly put up our views specially to the State Government particularly on all issues for betterment of our school.

(c) Data Bank. While sufficient progress have been made regarding compilation of data of ex students. However, we should not forget the widows of our colleagues. It is my earnest desire to compile a data bank of widows as well as of all ex students. There should be a mechanism to ensure that all widows as well as their children are invited for all our functions particularly for the Reunion Day Function. I strongly appeal to all of you to cooperate with the General Secretary to enable him to compile the data bank at the earliest possible time.

(d) Life Member. The number of ex students is about 5000 but as on date we have only 76 as ‘Life Member’. With considerable efforts we have been able enroll 16 ex students as Life Member in the recent past. I would request maximum ex students to be Life Member. For your information, I would like to mention that we have introduced number of incentives for the ‘Life Members’.

(e) Quality of Intake to School. I have been given to understand by the Principal, SSG that the quality of intake to the school is not of high standard. Therefore, we need to give maximum publicity through press (electronic and print media), word of mouth, banners etc. so that maximum people of the state are aware of the school. It is heartening to note the OBASSG including many Chapters of the schools have taken a number of measures to make the environment aware of the school.

(f) Intake to NDA. The main purpose of the Sainik School is to form a feeder institution for the National Defence Academy, K Vasla. Of late, the intake from our school has reduced significantly. While, the school has been making concerted endeavor, the OBA has also an important role to play. Similarly we need to support our students so that they can excel in CBSE exams to enable them to get admission in good institutions.

(g) Visibility of OBASSG. Our visibility in the environment needs to improve. As an institution we are doing a lot of social works whether it is Tree plantations, Blood Donation, Care of old aged people etc. however, the environment hardly knows about all such activities. This aspect must be addressed on priority.

(h) Performance of the various chapters. It is indeed a great pleasure to note that many of our chapters located in various parts of the state as well as outside the state, have carried out various programmes which has enhanced the image of the school. I would particularly like to mention the name of Imphal chapter as well as Delhi chapter, who have been very active.

Finally my sincere thanks to all of you who have come from various parts of the North Eastern region to make the event a success. My special thanks to my seniors in school, some of who are much more active than the younger generation. I would particularly thank to Sri Girija Barman and other members of the OBASSG who have taken lot of effort to make the organization vibrant and effective. The dedication of these members as well as many others have helped us to orgainse this Re-Union function successfully. May OBASSG continue to strive for excellence.

(Brig Ranjit Borthakur)
President, OBA
SSG
Admission No. 214.