Introduction

The  Grih Kalyan Kendra (referred to herein after as ‘the Kendra’ or ‘GKK’) is a welfare Society registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 and functions under the aegis of Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India. 

The idea of setting up of Grih Kalyan Kendra was conceived in 1957 by the Ministry of Home Affairs as a welfare scheme to promote the welfare of needy Central Government employees. A Welfare Section under one Under Secretary (Welfare) in the then Ministry of Home Affairs, named Grih Kalyan Kendra was opened to promote the welfare of Central Government employees and their dependant family members and it was felt that the schemes of welfare would have a pronounced socio-economic bias covering facilities of the employees in their residential colonies, particularly comprising Group C and Group D staff. The basic principle adopted was to build the morale of the lower income group employees covering particularly women and children. This Scheme was put into practice in a modest way by organising community welfare centres in the Government Residential colonies in Delhi. One of the chief aims of the scheme was to provide women of these Groups opportunities of gainful employment during their leisure hours by giving them training in certain crafts which would put them in a position to earn a little remuneration during the leisure hours when their domestic chores were over, thus, enabling them to supplement their meagre income. The motivation behind starting the Kendra was to afford assistance to needy Government servants in lower income groups to supplement their meagre income through the employment of their dependants in the Kendra. Thus, the twin purpose of the Kendra was to ease the pressure on the slender purse of the lowly paid government servants and to provide new vistas of employment to their dependants by imparting training to them in the matters involving art, craft and technique.

In the years that followed, the activities of the Grih Kalyan Kendra broadened to other parts of the country also and the basic idea of the Kendra acquired new depth on the basis of experience. When the activities of the Kendra expanded, it was thought that it would function more effectively if it was given an autonomous status and accordingly, it was registered as a Society named Grih Kalyan Kendra Board under the Societies Registration act 1860 in 1965.