Brief History

The founder secretary Biswajit Padhi arrived in Khariar in 1993 to pursue his legal profession from the state capital. The under development of the area & striking regional imbalance hurt him. Western Orissa though rich in resources is one of the most neglected & under developed area of the state because of weak political leadership. He started venting his anger through his writings in local & English media. This activism brought him close in contact with people & people’s issues & also civil society orgaisations. It was then he started having active discussion with friends & colleagues to bring in change. Qualified people, mostly sons of the soil came forward to see a dream & SRUSTI was born. SRUSTI was formally registered in Nuapada district but it was agreed that development can only be possible by interventions in under developed parts of the country. Western Orissa has remained the focus area since then.

Without any donor support, it started working with youths initially to encourage voluntary action to impact the lives of the poor. Promoting education amongst backward community was also one of the early initiatives of the organization. Forest dwellers were brought into mainstream through the Joint Forest Management trainings of Khariar forest Division from the year 2000 onwards. The campaign mode of the trainings helped identify exploitation of primary collectors of NTFP by middlemen. Local value addition of NTFP was the fallout of continuous interaction with the community & studying the investment pattern of traders. The sufferings of women & children, particularly on health matters helped us design & implement health programmes for them. Affordability & accessibility of modern medicine being a barrier, we have been promoting herbal medicine as preventive & low cost care.