HYDERABAD: A private foundation said it had started an effort to turn 50 villages carbon-neutral, starting with Charla thanda in Nalgonda district, and claims it can show results within three years. The programme, ‘Sambhav Hai’, rests on a claim made by its founder Dr Irfan Khan that villages can be measured, graded, and then pushed from “carbon-positive” to “carbon-neutral” through a mix of water, land and energy changes that are tracked village by village.
The initiative begins with baseline mapping at the household level, moves through interventions such as groundwater recharge, waste segregation and afforestation, and then attempts to scale from one village to 150 and eventually 750 across India.
Khan said the model depends on physical presence in villages and draws on village-level entrepreneurs and external carbon accounting, and will later seek participation from government institutions.
“It is possible. That is why I named this initiative ‘Sambhav Hai’,” said Dr Irfan Khan, founder and chairman of EBG Group, adding, ““This is not just an idea; it is a 20- to 25-year commitment.” The group launched the project on Earth Day in Hyderabad.
Khan says the idea came up during his time in the Himalayas, where extreme weather forced him to confront the scale of environmental change. He speaks of greenhouse gas emissions in global terms, then narrows the focus to what can be altered at a local level. He says one per cent reduction in global emissions would take decades if pursued broadly, and that drove him to search for a unit small enough to manage and large enough to matter. That unit, in his telling, became the village. “It is easier to adopt a village and make it carbon-neutral than a city,” Khan said.
Khan says his team worked with a firm called Green Mentor to assess villages through carbon accounting. The exercise, as he describes it, places villages on a scale that runs from what he calls dark maroon to green, based on environmental conditions. The pilot village fell into the most vulnerable category. He says the work started three months before the public launch and will be tracked over time to show measurable change.
“There is a carbon calculator called Low Soot and that is being used to make emission measurements,” Khan said, explaining that the assessment considers Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions, including methane from livestock and other sources beyond carbon dioxide. He says the audit establishes a baseline and then interventions begin.
The interventions he outlines speaks of safe drinking water, groundwater recharge, waste segregation and composting, along with afforestation and land practices. In conversation, Khan adds solar installations and the use of biochar as well. The official target remains three years to reach neutrality, though he allows that the pace will vary from place to place and fixes a reduction of 10-20% in the first year. As for finances, around 5 crore is being invested in each village yearly, he adds.
Ajai Arora, an expert in carbon accounting and energy management, who is also a part of the Sambhav Hai team, said, “When you go to the village, learn from them. Don’t go as a boss.” He also warned against relying on technology alone, including artificial intelligence, to solve problems that require judgement. His argument rests on a reversal of roles. He says urban systems have much to learn from the way villages already function, particularly in housing and resource use. “They don’t need our support, we need their support,” he said.
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