Kolkata: President A P J Abdul Kalam has donated as a token of his appreciation two months salary amounting to Rs one lakh to the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission (RMV), which he visited in January.

Mission sources said on February 13 that a cheque drawn on the State Bank of India's Central secretariat branch was sent recently to the organisation's Barrackpore headquarters in North 24-Parganas district.

In an accompanying letter to the Mission's founder and general secretary Swami Nityananda, the President recalled his visit to Barrackpore on January 21 and said, "I am deeply impressed about the service being rendered by Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission and it was a great experience for me."

During his 45-minute visit to the Mission, Kalam had interacted with the children and looked around the ashram.

Breaking away from his parent organisation Ramakrishna Mission to work independently, Swami Nityananda founded the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission in 1976 together with some other Ramakrishnite monks.

The Mission now has 15 centres in West Bengal, besides branches at Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and the United Kingdom.

PTI