DS3 - Sustainable Village Projects

What is Sustainable village?

Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.There are four dimensions to sustainable development – society, environment, culture and economy – which are intertwined, not separate. Sustainability is a paradigm for thinking about the future in which environmental, societal and economic considerations are balanced in the pursuit of an improved quality of life.

It is a dedicated community that is consciously designed through locally owned participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability to regenerate social and natural environments.

Sustainable rural development involves a holistic approach where daily basic needs of rural populations must be covered by reliable public utilities combined with technical, socioeconomic, and environmental conditions to support regional economies and urban-rural linkages.

How a Sustainable Village can be developed?

Kalyan Krupa Foundation aims to build sustainable communities through

1. Protecting the landscape. We aim to maintain mature trees, which provide natural shade, enrich the soil and protect the habitat of the local wildlife.

2. Better water management through Rain Water Harvesting, Bore well recharging, water body development and protection such as check dams, veers, lakes, lagoons, aquifer, rivers, springs, etc. Implementation of STP / FSTP for waste water treatment and recycling

3. Energy management by changing energy efficient LED lighting, Solar Power Packs, Biogas based Power generation systems, Solar Pumps, etc.

4. Waste management viz. biodegradable & non-biodegradable waste collection system, waste segregation at source, plastic waste collection, processing and upcycling technologies’ implementation, Biogas project implementation for biodegradable waste,

5. Carbon emissions management through innovative measures such as promoting EVs, restricted entries of fossil fuel based vehicles, incentivised schemes for fuel switch i.e. from hydrocarbon to eco friendly fuel kits, etc. Encouraging tree plantation and green coverage initiatives, promoting organic farming practices and usage of organic fertilizer and compost.

People in rural areas will often cut down trees for charcoal or other uses and sometimes they do not know the long term effects this practice could bring. Deforestation will in the long run cause soil erosion, desertification, floods and even fewer crops. Well, these problems could be avoided or at least curbed.

The important needs of villages are water, electricity, sanitation, Road connections. Overallrural development aims at the quality of life that is the key factor of sustainable growth in the effectiveness of the agricultural production. To achieve enhanced production and productivity in the rural areas there must be a spatial balance in the social and economic development.

Basic and main challenges of Rural Development

The major problems that have been identified by literature review in many rural areas are poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, homelessness, crime, social evils, lower living standards, lack of facilities, services, and health.

How to build a Rural Economy?

To address the abovementioned challenges in the process of rural development and in the building rural economy there are few core areas demands the attention of policy makers and developers. This can be done by setting up units in food processing, dairy & poultry. Acold chain, based on hybrid power i.e. solar / wind & biogas based energy, will preserve perishables and increase farm incomes. Units for bio-energy, garments, footwear and souvenirs can be set up in barren lands near villages.

The main objective of the Rural Development is improving the living standards of rural people by utilizing the easily available natural and human resources.

An ideal Indian village will be so constructed as to lend itself to perfect sanitation. It will have cottages with sufficient light and ventilation built of a material obtainable within a radius of five miles of it.

Most Developed Indian Villages

1) Mawlynnong, Meghalaya
2) Pothanikkad, Kerala
3) Khonoma, Nagaland
4) Punsari, Gujarat
5) Qila Raipur, Punjab
6) Malana, Himanchal Pradesh
7) Kathewadi, Maharashtra
8) Kokrebellur, Karnataka