Balipara foundation, an organization primarily focusing on ecological protection and restoration of the Eastern Himalayan region has proposed to develop a model village based on the concept of socio-economic mobility through habitat-restoration & other ecosystem services in forest-fringe communities of the Eastern Himalayas under their Rural Future program.

Being a leading organization in sustainable built environment and engineering design practices, Ecofirst services limited extended technical handholding and advisory service in development of this model village with necessary infrastructure to support sustainable development and potential socio-economic mobility. This model is envisaged to act as a framework for future rural development converging at a holistic solution which can be replicated at different sites in the study area.

Ecofirst team visited multiple villages in the project area to understand the context and ground reality through visual assessment and community interaction. The concept of future sustainable village is developed keeping in mind the conservation of socio-cultural essence of rural India while at the same time providing the community with sustainable solutions for the upliftment of rural life through design, technological and socioeconomic interventions. The proposed model also focuses on the economic strengthening of the community through alternative livelihood and indentifies the support infrastructure required. It also addresses some of the questions like what it needs to be a model future village? How to achieve this from a planner/designer’s point of view and how to realize this vision through community effort and access to financing?