MUMBAI, 18 OCTOBER 2025 (GPN/ SACHIN MURDESHWAR 📞8108510506): Mumbai-based Swades Foundation, founded by Ronnie and Zarina Screwvala, plans to set up 50 more dream villages in Maharashtra this fiscal year in addition to the 250 it has already created.“We have signed a letter of intent with the Maharashtra government to create 1,000 dream villages. We have already created 250 such villages. By the end of the year, we will create another 50,” Zarina Screwvala, co-founder of Swades, told GPN in an online interaction.

Swades Foundation, drawing its name from the 2004 Hindi film Swades produced by Ronnie Screwvala, has a 360-degree approach for the development of these villages, almost all of them in tribal areas. The foundation, launched in 2012, tries to address issues such as water and sanitation, health, education and livelihood.

Swades’ support to farmers on fields includes helping in irrigation, fruit plantation and crop diversification. Off-farm, it helps farmers to set up dairy, poultry, goat farming, and fisheries units. Non-farmers get training in skilling and micro-entrepreneurship, while women are aided in setting up self-help groups, she said.

The foundation promotes micro-irrigation (drip systems), solar energy, and check dams and encourages crop diversification by introducing crops like Safed Musli (Indian Spider Plant), Mogra (Jasmine), and capsicum. It provides training and exposure visits to 2,000-3,000 farmers every month and has set up farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) to improve market access for growers, Screwvala said.

Mangesh Wange, CEO of Swades, said the foundation follows a 4E strategy. These are Engage, which is building trust with communities, Empower, which encourages community ownership through training and cost-sharing, Execute by partnering with NGOs, hospitals and specialists, and Exit, which ensures sustainability so that the foundation can eventually withdraw.

The foundation aims to ensure that every farmer’s family gets an additional earning of Rs 50,000–1,00,000 annually through two or more sources of income. This will help reduce the dependency on the weather and monsoon, he said.

“The foundation has contributed Rs120 crore annually to the GDP in the region we work in,” said the Swades co-founder. She said the foundation, which has 11,000 community volunteers, has 60 different programmes, which are designed to fit in every household in a village.

“Our foundation has changed the lives of over half a million people. We actually work to take an entire region out of poverty, and our interventions are deep,” said Screwvala. Speaking on the on-farm activity of the foundation, Screwvala said one of the first efforts is to bring fallow or rain-fed land under irrigation. “For example, in most of the coastal areas in Maharashtra, nothing is done after the monsoon. They harvest the paddy in November-December, and then nothing happens after that. But if they get access to water, they can grow two more crops till May and June, till next monsoon,” she said.

The second is to ensure diverse sources of income for the farmers, rather than depending on one. “We get them to do off-farm activities such as dairy, poultry, goatry and fishery based on the local context and need. We empower rural women through our goat programmes, for example. Goat or backyard poultry gives women empowerment and also an additional source of income to the family,” said Screwvala. On the micro-irrigation front, Swades brings the farmers together and works on the sources of water and creates check dams, if necessary. If there are no existing sources, then it helps them with drip irrigation.

Swadesh has set up community empowerment teams which develop suitable content for farmers, imbibe knowledge and best cultivation practices on diversification. Screwvala said farmers also share success stories through digital media, and this also helps community empowerment.Swades wants these tribals to be on their own.

“We don’t want to hand-hold them so that they can grow. That’s why we ensure they undergo business training, how to run FPCs and other such things,” said Screwvala. The foundation is working in Maharashtra’s Raigad district after completing its work in Nashik. It plans to begin expanding in six more districts, taking the total number of districts it functions in Maharashtra to 17.

However, Swades does not plan to expand its activities beyond Maharashtra now. But its work is currently near Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat borders, she said.

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