A forest-rich village: in search of Energy

Baripada Gram Vikas Samitee (BGVS) is a unique organisation composed entirely of the villagers that it works for. The organisation is led and run by a group of local tribal youth in Baripada village, Dhule district.

Baripada villagers began their journey with conservation of the forest. The 100 families living in the village united to evolve BGVS and developed their own rules for conserving the forest. They stopped cutting of trees, and left only one-month-a-year for cutting dry branches for firewood. They planted new trees and protected the old ones. Forest produce like honey, gum, fruits, flowers, and roots is owned by the community. Baripada has managed to grow a jungle over 400 hectares of land. This unique achievement was applauded by the State as Baripada received Joint Forest Management award. Of recently, the State has adopted the rules that Baripada made as Laws of the state.

Baripada has harvested water in the jungle through three percolation tanks, 150 small bunds, and over 250 watershed structures. The leader of Baripada, a completely non-political down-to-earth barefoot man, Chaitram Pawar was awarded by the International Federation for Agricultural Development (IFAD) at Bangkok, Thailand.

BGVS is registered under Societies Registration Act, 1860, Maharashtra/ 831

Under the Mumbai Trust Act, 1950, F-781/Solapur

You can support BGVS

BGVS is developed almost entirely by the efforts of the villagers and they have never sought external help (not even government subsidies). Sault and electricity are the only things that Baripada buys from outside.

BGVS is now planning to have an Energy plant to become self-reliant on the energy front. The forest has a huge deposit of Mahua oil seeds. The Energy plant shall work in three phases: 1) Extracting oil from seeds, 2) Extracting bio-gas from the left-over (molasses) of oil-plant, and 3) Generating electricity from the gas.

BGVS needs approx. Rs. 14 Lakhs for this project. You can contribute to raise this fund.

  • Sponsor an Oil extractor: Rs. 1,00,000

  • Sponsor a Gas-to-electricity plant: Rs. 3,00,000

Drop a cheque in the name of: “Sewa International”

Write to: info@sevasahayog.com or Call: +91.20.24458702/+91.20.24433606

Our other partners-in-Nature Conservation:

  • Sampurn Bamboo Kendra, Melghat (Amravati)

  • Oak Vanaushadhi Sanshodhan Pratishthan, Karjat

  • Lok Seva Mandal, Kinvat