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Focus on empowerment through simple skills

Staff Correspondent

Suggestion given by patron of HESCO accepted

DEHRA DUN: Delegates at the International Conference on Small Hydro Power held at Hang Zhou in China this past week have accepted a suggestion from Anil Joshi, patron of the Dehra Dun-based Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation ( HESCO), to promote simple, easy-to-use technologies like water mills that could be adopted by the poor as development tools in the developing world. The conference was supported by UNIDO.

Known as a crusader for local empowerment through simple skills including the improvised watermill, Dr. Joshi told reporters here on Wednesday that the delegates felt that the Indian experience of empowerment through water mills could be used as a tool in the Lighting up of Africa programme.

Senior officials of the programme would soon visit HESCO to sign a MoU for facilitating transfer of relevant skills and technology to the African continent, he said.

Dr. Joshi hoped that the Indian Government would also adopt improvised water mills as a tool for local power generation, grinding and small enterprise promotion in the villages where water resources were available.

“The HESCO technologies adopted by the Army in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East for social welfare of the civilians have helped as confidence building measures and we do hope to contribute more to the border areas,” Dr. Joshi said.

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Focus on empowerment through simple skills

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