Our work
Our mandate
What HITA is set up to do, across its three focus areas. Some of this is under way above; the rest is planned and will be built with partners.
- Critical landscape restoration in each of the three Himalayan sub-belts, with an initial focus on Himachal Pradesh.
- Agroecological transformation that improves food, nutrition and income security while preserving soil, human and animal health.
- Advice and technical support for nature conservation in and around protected areas, including revenue-generating rewilding and ethno-botanical projects with communities.
- Reimagining the future: vision processes with implementation roadmaps, such as SAMRIDH Himachal Vision 2045 and the forthcoming Ladakh process.
- Dialogue with government bodies for policies that support sustainable development and investment, including an annual Himalayan reading of the Union Budget.
- Research on the region's economy, environment and society, published as reports and shared through conferences.
- Public awareness campaigns on the environmental and social issues facing the region.
- Pooling resources, expertise and networks with government, development finance institutions, the private sector, academia and NGOs.
- Corporate partnerships where economic and ecological benefit go together.
- Spreading pioneering models to new places: people-nature conservation, social and mental health, anticipatory disaster response and infrastructure, resilient value chains, circular economy and waste, and practical new technology.
- Two immediate threads. Innovative enterprises: home-based small enterprises for young people, and SHE Marts, community-owned, women-run marts along the national highways selling self-help-group products. Eco-tourism: spiritual and ecologically sensitive tourism, local arts and crafts, Buddhist monastery circuits and other cultural sites, and interpretation centres.
Engagements
Flagship processes
SAMRIDH Himachal Vision 2045
The vision document for Himachal Pradesh, developed over a year of consultations across the state. Two HITA advisers curated the process.
Read more →Samridh Palampur Samvad
A citizen-led plan for Palampur's growth, now with the district officers and departments who can implement it.
Read more →Ladakh Vision Process
A vision process for the Ladakh Union Territory, now being initiated on the lines of SAMRIDH Himachal.
Read more →Analysis & response
Mandi Disaster Relief
When the 2025 monsoon hit Mandi, HITA connected a national relief agency with local organisations. 200 families received relief kits and 1,236 families across 27 Gram Panchayats received cash assistance.
Read more →Union Budget 2026–27: Opportunities for Himachal Pradesh
What the Union Budget offers Himachal Pradesh, and what it misses. Written with five experts and sent to the state and the Union government.
Read more →Models & advisory
Circularity in Waste Management
A waste-management model built for hill towns, developed with Palampur Municipal Corporation and three NGOs.
Read more →Emerging Engagements
Three areas of work now taking shape: springs, climate adaptation, and tourism.
Read more →Advisory Support to Organisations
HITA gives pro-bono advice to NGOs, government departments and research organisations to help them work more effectively, from anti-drug campaigns to elderly care.
Read more →Ahead: 2026–27
Work in progress and in the pipeline for the coming year.
Membership and an active role in the Palampur NGO Forum, and continued advisory support to partner organisations.
Recycling of Palampur's legacy plastic waste, taking the circularity work into practice.
Sharing western-Himalayan lessons on springshed development with North-East India, through a Tata Trusts workshop in Guwahati.
A sustainable nature-conservation and local-livelihoods project, in development.