Youth is the sharpest arrow in Chhattisgarh's development quiver — and Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai made that declaration count on Thursday, 24 September 2026, addressing the National Service Scheme State-Level Foundation Day and Felicitation Ceremony at Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay Sabhagar, Raipur.

Speaking at the event, CM Sai said — 'Yuva shakti Viksit Bharat ke sankalp ki sabse badi takat hai' — 'Youth power is the greatest strength of the resolve for a Developed India.' He framed the National Service Scheme (NSS) not merely as a student programme but as a forge for values: service, culture, and the spirit of nation-building that he argued were inseparable from Chhattisgarh's development ambitions.

What NSS Has Meant Since 1969

The National Service Scheme was launched in 1969 under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to draw college and university students into structured community service. Over more than five decades it has enrolled millions of volunteers across India, weaving social responsibility into higher education. Its annual Foundation Day — observed each year on 24 September, the date of its original launch — is a moment states use to felicitate outstanding volunteers and reaffirm the programme's mission.

Chhattisgarh's state-level observance at the Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay Sabhagar — the landmark Raipur auditorium named after BJP ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay — gave the ceremony a distinctive ideological backdrop, aligning the ethos of seva (service) with the ruling party's own foundational narrative of Antyodaya, or upliftment of the last person in the line.

Sai's Viksit Chhattisgarh Frame for Youth

CM Sai, who took office in December 2023 as the BJP government's choice following the party's return to power in Chhattisgarh, has consistently pitched youth mobilisation as central to the state's growth story. The event also carried the hashtag #SevaSankalpAbhiyan — Seva Sankalp Abhiyan, or the 'Service Resolve Campaign' — signalling a broader state-branded push that aligns NSS activity with the Centre's Viksit Bharat vision of a developed India by 2047.

The ceremony doubled as a felicitation event, honouring NSS volunteers whose community work stands out — a routine but symbolically powerful ritual that keeps enrolment drives alive in colleges across the state.

For tens of thousands of NSS volunteers in Chhattisgarh's universities and colleges, the message from Raipur today was unambiguous: the state government sees their hours of community service not as extracurricular credit, but as the raw material of a generation that will build the next Chhattisgarh.