Bengaluru, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Sah Sarkaryavah Manmohan Vaidya on Friday said the RSS is keen on reaching grassroot-level among students and village clusters by 2024.

"There is a growing curiosity to know about RSS. All may not join us but it is certain that they are eager to work with it. Based on our past and present experiences we will discuss how to increase the number of shakhas (branches) and expand our role," he explained.

"In the next three years, we would like to cover and complete building our shakhas across the country," he said.

Speaking to the media in between the two-day hybrid virtual meet, the Joint General Secretary said members of the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, highest decision making body will be focussing on expansion Sangh network across the country in the next few years.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Manmohan Vaidya and other top RSS leaders also participated in the programme on Friday. There were 1,500 members participating in the hybrid event with around 450 participating in Bengaluru while the remaining through online facilities set up at various RSS headquarters across states.

Addressing the media, Vaidya said the ABPS meeting discussed the Sangh's activists during Covid pandemic and fund raising drive for Ram Mandir and it gave the RSS a clear picture about, how its network can be expanded.

According to him, RSS has shakhas (branches) in 85 per cent 6,495 taluks across the country, while it has active branches in 40 per cent of 58,500 mandals (clusters) (mandal is a cluster of 10-12 villages) and 20 per cent of these clusters have just contact centers and does not have full fledged shakhas.

Vaidya added that among shakhas too there are three categories - students, youngsters and above 40 years. "Our main aim is to reach out to youngsters, therefore, RSS focusses on building Shakhas attracting students and youngsters. "Among existing branches, 60 per cent are dedicated to catering students, above 18 years and below 40 years are 29 per cent, while only a 11 per cent of shakhas cater to above 40 years age," he explained but refrained from giving exact number of shakhas in the country stating that it would be furnished on Saturday.

The Sah Sarkaryavah further added that RSS's social arm Seva Bharati was able to cover 92,656 places through its more than 5,00,000 activist during the Covid pandemic (March 2020 onwards).

"During this period we distributed 73 lakh ration kits, 4.5 crore food packets, more than 60,000 units of blood, 90 lakh masks and more than 20 lakh migrant workers including 2.5 lakh nomadic people during the period," he added.