Parasu Ram Mishra

Parasu Ram Mishra (died 2001) was an Indian soil conservationist and environmentalist, credited with efforts for the transformation of Sukhomajri, a small village in Chandigarh in the valley of Shivalik Hills.

[1] He was the head of the Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute (CSWCRTI) at its Chandigarh centre.

[4] In order to find a solution to the problem, CSWCRTI deputed a team in 1975, with Mishra as the project director[5] to Sukhomajri, an arid village at the foothills of Shivalik Hills, in Panchkula district of the Indian state of Haryana.

[5] It is reported that the bare slopes of Shivalik Hills were covered with vegetation, the milk production increased nine-fold, the rate of sedimentation was reduced to 1/15th of earlier levels, crop yield increased manifold, and a corpus fund was put in place, under the care of a society, for development activities in the village.

[2] Mishra introduced a new concept of cyclical investment, Chakriya Vikas Pranali, where a part of the returns from a scheme becomes the capital of the next project, which is noted to have assisted in increasing rural employment and making the village self-reliant.