nagpur the visvesvaraya national institute of technology vnit has adopted nine villages under the unnat bharat abhiyan uba aimed at bringing grass roots level changes in rural areas through technological interventions from academic and research institutes but without affecting the local culture sameer deshkar professor at vnits architecture and urban planning department who is one of the teachers involved in the project told toi that unnat bharat abhiyan was launched on november 11 2014 to help develop villages by finding solutions to the daytoday problems faced by the rural populace preferably using local resources various vnit departments including mechanical engineering computer engineering electronics and electric engineering architecture department and material sciences department are collectively working on the project this is needed as no problem be it developing new agricultural tool or related to it or energy sector can be solved by technological support from a single department it has to be a multidisciplinary approach in fact material sciences department can help in developing new material as per local needs said deshkar involving local community in development of any technological intervention is a must for the success of the project the nine villages identified for the project are chitri kotha lawada villages in amravati district deolapar jamgarh and dahegaon villages in nagpur district and sawade rajburdi and bhagdari villages in jalgaon district there are actually three clusters in three districts as per the uby criteria these villages must have a population of 1000 and gram panchayat the major intervention areas identified for these villages are sanitation energy housing livelihood and resilience building deshkar said that vnit students have already conducted surveys in three villages in melghats tribal belt in amravati district sanitation hygiene housing and health are the main issues that need to be dealt here at the earliest there are two types of solutions that will be sought for improving the living standard of these villagers the first one is simple technology driven but acceptable to the locals for the second type of solutions there is a need for policy changes at the local state and central government levels otherwise these solutions will provide only temporary relief and would not help bring in the actual change needed at the ground level vnit or other institutes can guide the policymakers in doing that in the three villages in melghat vnit has decided to use bamboo as local material to construct bathrooms in tribal houses where women still urinate and defecate in the open the students also conducted a sipna a river in melghat shodh yatra and interacted with residents living on both sides of the river they identified housing as an issue which needs intervention but still a lot of research is needed to suggest any meaningful changes another major factor that vnit is focusing on in the identified villages is rural resilience we need to prepare the local residents to bounce back easily and tactfully from any natural calamity or disturbance happening in an area they need to