League History
Historical background
Gopal Subrao Dangi, Dr. Narayan Anna Naik, Madhavrao Vasudev Bhat, Sheshgiri Manjunath Kamat, Martobrao Durgappa Gaitonde, Vinayak Srinivas Kamat, Ramachandra Krishna Prabhu, Anandrao Pandurang Kamat,Venkatrao Ramachandra Haldipur, Madhav Manjunath Shanbhag and many other enthusiastic members of the Goud Saraswat Brahman community came together and formed the voluntary association known as The Goud Saraswat Brahman Scholarship League. The League with the object of providing scholarships and rendering other suitable help to the poor and deserving students of the Goud Saraswat Brahman Community. They garnered an appreciable support from the GSB community and collected funds for this purpose.
July 1923 the League formed a Trust and appointed a Board of Trustees to hold the funds of the League to ensure the safety and security of the property and investments of the League. Following members were nominated to be the first Trustees of the League :
- Madhavrao Vasudev Bhat.
- Ramachandra Krishna Prabhu.
- Anandrao Pandurang Kamat.
- Venkatrao Ramachandra Haldipur.
- Madhav Manjunath Shanbhag.
To give a legal status to the Trust and the said Trustees, a DECLARATION OF TRUST DEED dated 26th April 1926 was registered containing a set of Rules and Procedures to govern the Trust, its financial administration, appointment of the Managing Committee and office bearers etc.
The League obtained registration as a Public Trust vide Certificate of Registration No. A-1080 (B) under Bombay Public Trusts Act 1950.
Similarly, the League was registered as a Charitable Trust under Section12-A(a) of the Income Tax Act 1961 under Registration No. INS/3576.
Over the years, a sense of stalemate had set in in the working of the League primarily due to want of active
workers to keep a certain tempo of essential activity, like disbursement of free scholarships. Around the year
1954, the League was sought to be “handed over“ to any other Institution to carry on with the administration.
The then committee approached the Free Press Journal ( FPJ) with the intention of inserting a suitable
advertisement for this purpose.
Fortunately, the then Editor of the FPJ, Mr. Digamber Nilkanth Nadkarni was shocked to notice this state of
affairs about a Trust with noble objectives going out of existence. He called the Committee members to his
room
and heard their despair. He asked them whether he could assist to revive the League.
Mr. Nadkarni gathered some prominent members of the community and with their whole hearted support convened a
general meeting of the members of the community and formed a Planning Committee to draft a comprehensive
Report
for the revival of the League's functioning and to improve the activities over the next five years in the
short
term and to recommend a set of rules and regulations to manage the League's affairs efficiently and
effectively
with sustainable growth. This document, known as the “Planning Report”, has since become the CONSTITUTION of
the
Scholarship League, also known as the Bye Laws of the League.
Mr. Nadkarni, with his vast experience as Chairman of the NKGSB Industrial and Education Society, along with
Mr.
Kulai Vasudev Kini, a well known structural engineer, put in a lot of hard work, with great enthusiasm and
dedication, rejuvenated the scholarship League from 1955. Their spirit of duty towards education of the needy
and deserving students of the community, particularly from the districts of North and South Kanara, inspired
not
only the other prominent persons in high positions in Bombay but also many other young persons who worked as
volunteers to do all the work including mobilizing funds for the League.