Yog Manav Vikas Trust was established in the year 2001 as a social charitable non-profit organization and is a brain child of Sh. S.K. Dodeja Retired Director(Projects) NHPC, his wife Kiran Dodeja, with his team who had been serving in Chamba District for long periods and had the opportunity to have insight into the hardships & sufferings of rural folks and their children living in the remote areas in the vicinity of number of Hydro Electric Projects constructed by NHPC since 1978. Even today, Chamba is considered one of the most backward districts in Himachal Pradesh. According to latest survey, whole of blocks of Mehla, Salooni & Tissa have been declared backward, while 11 Gram Panchayats of Chamba and 17 Gram Panchayats of Bhattiyat blocks are dispersed backward Panchayats, besides Bharmour and Pangi being tribal blocks. 92 percent population lives in rural areas with overall literacy rate for Chamba being at 65 percent (Females 50%). Schedule Caste population is 20 percent, Schedule Tribe 25 percent and 62 percent families live below poverty line with agriculture being the mainstay for 71 percent of total population. The rural remote areas remain untouched with and Trust’s objectives cover unprivileged children & rural folks.

    Altruism and spiritualism in one form or the other has been an integral part of Engineer and this inspired & compelled to contemplate upon executing something different, something new and innovative on this land of Chamba District for the human beings, poor rural folks & society in general. Buddha’s teachings of generosity, compassion and wisdom and Gita’s instructions on Loksangraha always reverberated upon them repeatedly. The attitude of compassion towards poors, unprivileged and children, the aspirations to work for others and intuition from deeper level of super consciousness led towards establishing an organization to work for long term purpose & objective, by having its own essential infrastructure including residential, rather than working from some hired or rented accommodation. Trust by now has demonstrated its mettle & capability in community development, capacity building, women empowerment, education, training & social upliftment in these 9 years of successful operation; also providing education support & benefits to rural folks, farmers, children, women, adolescents, adults, aged & others alike through its multi-facet programmes & schemes, also drawing attention of many Government & Non-government, autonomous & other organizations for partnership and sponsorships for their Projects / Schemes.

     Besides Yog Manav Vikas Trust being a registered organization under Societies Registration Act since 2001, the Trust is also registered for income-tax purposes and the donations to Trust for conducting its social & charitable activities are exempt under under Section 80G of Income Tax Act. Trust is also registered under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act for accepting donations from abroad. The accounts of the Trust are maintained as per legal requirements by Accountant and are audited by Statutory Auditors on year-to-year basis with its audited balance sheet filed to concerned authorities.