Bharat Kakade is the President & Managing Trustee of an Indian NGO working for rural livelihood through sustainable management of natural resources for last 55 years with a spread of its work in 13 states, 93738 villages, covering over 3.13 million rural poor families.
His significant contributions include innovative rural development projects such as Conjunctive use of water resources in the Deccan Trap; Ravine land reclamation with equitable ground water utilization in Kanpur (Rural) district of Uttar Pradesh; Decentralized water resource development using farm pond network in Karnataka; Drought-proofing approach in semi-arid regions of Rajasthan; Integrating Drinking Water in Watershed Development, a trilateral project between India, South Africa and UK. Instrumental in developing “Sustainable Rural Livelihood in Backward districts of Maharashtra” under World Bank-supported National Agricultural Innovation Programme (NAIP) of ICAR.
As an External Evaluator and Development Consultant of domestic and bilateral programmes, he undertook several assignments for the organizations – India Canada Environment Facility (ICEF), Plan International, Concern World Wide, Tata Trust, IWMI, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, CCAFS and USAID. Also played Advisory role to organizations including Malanadu Development Society, Kerala; ‘Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra (KGVK), Jharkhand’ of the corporate Usha Martin Group; Admin. of Andaman and Nicobar and Government of Jammu and Kashmir.
He was also a faculty of Civil Engineering at the Government College of Engineering, Pune (1991-92); Bharati Vidyapith Institute of Environment Education and Research (2000-05) and LEAD India (2007).
He has received the prestigious Tejwani National Award for excellence in Research, Training and Development of Natural Resources for biennial 1996-97. The project “Conjunctive Use of Water Resources in Deccan Trap India “implemented during 1993 to 1997, was recognized by United Nations and awarded by Government of Maharashtra. The Project was assessed by UNEP as one of the top 10 successful environment protection projects in the world. NAIP Project in Maharashtra (where he was Principal Investigator) received the Times of India Social Impact Award in 2011.
Bharat has published 2 watershed development manuals, 4 case study booklets, 2 research reports on natural resources management and 18 research papers. 16 papers have been presented in workshops / conferences at national and international levels.