Chambal safari lodge near Agra

This Lodge is the culmination of the dreams of Ram Pratap Singh and Anu Dhillon (an Engineer from IIT Roorkee and an Environment Scientist from London University, respectively), who chose to give up successful careers and along with their then newborn son to move back to their ancestral farms in 1999. Since then every effort has been made to initiate sustainable and self sustaining projects in the Chambal Valley, a largely unknown and hitherto neglected part of North India, despite being in such close proximity to the World famous Taj Mahal.

We work in close collaboration with the forest department and local communities to help strike a balance between ostensibly divergent needs. Village level eco-development schemes have been revived and peoples’ participation encouraged. We have been instrumental in placing the National Chambal Sanctuary onto the international birding and wildlife map, thus ensuring its continued protection. We have raised and highlighted issues of concern regarding the sanctuary and its surrounding areas, as well as helping seek solutions such as providing technical inputs for building check-dams in the ravines, setting up of check-posts and watch-towers, organising village level meetings, preparing extensive checklists of the bird, mammal and reptilian species etc.

Eco-tourism by definition requires the involvement and benefit of local people and communities. Our team members belong to the area and have been trained by us. They are a highly motivated, enthusiastic and friendly group of people and an integral part of our extended family. They have all made an effort to acquire better skills and constantly strive to improve their communication and presentation abilities. Procurement of goods and services for the Lodge is done locally, as far as possible. Local craftsmen and technicians are employed in all restoration and extension work.

We are committed to minimising the environmental impact of our lodge. We recycle organic waste through compost pits and inorganic wastes through traditional ‘kabari’ collection systems. Bath & kitchen water and rainwater runoff in ponds is re-used through the use of soak-pits.

All visitors are provided with information for reducing water and power consumption. The bathrooms all have showers but we recommend ‘bucket baths’, as they use only 20 litres of water compared with 100 litres required for an average shower. We limit the use of electrical equipment and use power efficient products when necessary eg. water heaters. There is limited use of electrical generators and we have started growing Jatropha, a source of bio-diesal. We use vegetables and grains grown organically in our own fields and also buy the organic produce of other local farmers.

The office uses e-brochures, e-cards and CDs instead of printed brochures. Environment awareness camps are organised for schools and local communities. Every October we organise a wildlife week to create awareness and generate interest amongst school children. Close to 20,000 children participated in the 2005 event, which included talks, essay and quiz competitions, and visits to protected areas near Agra, including the National Chambal Sanctuary.