The sustainable development plan includes recycling of water and waste, using renewable energy like solar and wind energy, vermiculture projects and also educational activities that helps students to become self-employed. The project was the brainchild of Rajendra Shende, currently based in Paris where he heads the Ozone Action Group of United Nation’s Environmental Programme.

When Shende visited Rahimatpur on December 31, a full year after the project was rolled out, to take a reality check on how the project had panned out, he was overcome by the change in the body language of the people there.

“It was also amazing to notice that bureaucrats, educationists and common people are coming together for a cause,” he says.

“When this idea was put forth by Shende, the first task was to get together the local politicians for gearing up the project. It took nearly six months. We gathered every professional community in Rahimatpur and told them to participate in the cleanliness drive. People in the town who were initially hesitant about the project are now giving overwhelming support,” points out Sanjay Shinde, sub-divisional officer, Satara.

For Shende, originally a resident of Rahimatpur and an IIT Mumbai product, it was a chance meeting with the former President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam that triggered the decision to try and make a model out of his home town.

“When I attended the Pan-IIT Meet in December 2006, I got inspired by the speech of Kalam where he appealed the IITians to adopt and transform one lakh villages. I then went to Rahimatpur and put forth the idea which was welcomed by the people as well as the bureaucrats and the local politicians,” he reminisces.

Shende then shared the idea with friends from IIT - Shekhar Chirputkar, Ajay Pathak, Praveen Dhole and Sanjay Dasgupta. “After hearing the Kalam speech, I was looking for an opportunity to work with people. The Rahimatpur project has started, but we know that there is long way to go,” says Chirputkar.

“We were to provide technical expertise, guidance for sustainable activities and a little funding. The implementation was to be done by the people of the town,” says Shende.

As a first step towards sustainable development, school children from Suman Parashram Phadtare Kanya Prashala became ambassadors of cleanliness in one ward — Mali Galli — and went to every house, telling the people how to manage the waste and appealing them to keep premises clean and litter-free. The initiative paid off and the ward became an embodiment of cleanliness in a matter of two months.