After working in the US (Minnesota) for 30 years, Ram Krishnan, for the past 6 years, spends 3 months in India every year, learning, working and advocating for the poor in India's village called Vijaypar, 2 hours driving east of Bhuj in Gujrat, which he visited as part of a team volunteer in the reconstruction of this 208-family village after the earthquake of 2001.

After 6 trips through India's villages during 3 years, he has met many pioneers of rural development all across India. He has arranged bus tours to expose NRI's to India's villages both in the North (Haryana, Rahasthan) and South (Tamil Nadu).

Ram is an alumnus of IIT Madras, graduated in 1967 with a B.Tech and M.Tech. When the campus decided to take an exteded summer vacation due to severe water shortage, he arrived in the campus 4 days after hearing about the water crisis. Prof. P.V. Indiersan, a past Director of IIT Madras and his wife Jaya, had visited Ram in Minneapolis (USA) 1 year earlier and introduced him to the concept of Rain water harvesting (RWH).

Rain Water Harvesting
Ram collaborated with Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) practitioners in Chennai such as Sekar Raghavan, Indukanth Ragade, engaged in various community out-reach programs in the city of Chennai. He worked with the Rotary Club of Madras on a Temple tank-desilting project. He played a key role in setting up India's First Rain Center in Chennai near Shanthome.

CM Jayalalitha agreed to inaugurate the Rain Center along with Sunita Narain of CSE and Prof Swaminathan. Shantha
Sheela Nair, IAS, helped to design and pass the legislation in July 2003, making RWH installation mandatory for all buildings across the entire State of Tamil Nadu. All the boys hostels in IITM have RWH installed and it provides almost 45% of the drinking water needs.

Ground water levels in Tamil Nadu are getting recharged but we have a long way to go before fully recovering from years of exploitation.

During one of the 'Learning Journeys' through the 5 southern districts of Tamil Nadu, he learned that most villages and villagers need water and need jobs. "Paani nahi hai, nokari nahi hai". A volunteer group of NRI's and RI's selected a 25-village cluster in the region of Vilathikulam in the Tuticorin Distric. A 6-month Phase 1 of the effort was completed just prior to the disaster of the Tsunami.
 
Vilathikulam projects – Watershed and Livelihood

Our first watershed project helped to enlarge and desilt a village oorani (drinking water pond) to provide year long supply of drinking water. DHAN Foundation of Madurai provided the key field management and community involvement. In another village –  Ettyapuram, we installed a piped drinking water supply

A number of livelihood projects – vermicomposting, tailoring, rearing goats, pot-in-a-pot and other were initiated in 8 villages in this region. Where we provided 100% financing, the projects failed, Where the community invested at least 30%, the project succeeded.

Community Center in the Vilathikulam Village cluster

Based on the lessons learned, in our second phase, we are constructing a Community Center in a 12-acre plot to provide key services in the areas of Health, Education and actual field training in many livelihood subjects. A number if IIT alumni are participating in the effort.

His wishes to meet President Kalam came true on Aug 2005. With Prof Indiresan and his wife Jaya, he spent about 25 minutes in a private meeting with President Kalam in his office at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan. President Kalam greeted with a "Vannakkam" (Hello in Tamil). From that Tamil greeting, the rest of the meeting was conducted in Tamil. Of course, Kalam spoke chaste Tamil and he had difficulty sticking to Tamil without mixing in English words in between.
President Kalam was quite interested in the projects. He requested that Ram visit 2 places in India -Coimbatore area to see the 'Sirithuli" project to see a community based water harvesting project and Loni in Maharashtra. He submitted an appeal requesting that all the IIT's in India create formalized courses in Rural Development subjects. Later he learned that this appeal was implemented, including a grant of Rs 1 crore to each IIT by the Science Ministry to work on Rural projects.

Ram is an active member of India's Development Coalition of America (IDCA) and helped arrange many annual conferences on Rural Development issues in India. As a volunteer with CARE International, Ram supports various Global Poverty issues by CARE. During the last 4 years, Ram has gone to the US Congress for the Annual Care Day at the US capitol.

Ram Krishnan and his wife Nayana, have lived in the US for over 35 years. He founded and operated a Logistics Consulting company for 15 years in the US. He has 2 daughters, Meera and Priya . Born in Trivandrum, schooled in Madras, Delhi and Bombay, he completed his Engineering studies in IIT Madras. He is quite active in the IIT alumni activities and is the past President of IITM alumni group in the USA. He attended the 3rd Pan IIT program in Pragathi Maidan, Delhi on Dec 24, 2004 as well as the 3rd Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Mumbai on Jan 7-9, 2005. President Kalam presented the Vision 2020 and the PURA program at both the venues. Ram Krishnan is committing his next 4+ years to work for sustainable and scalable projects in the villages of India, where about 800million people live and earn less than Rs 100per day. �������������He is now an 'Overseas Citizen of India' (OCI)