BAL
Balaram Eco Sena
The Eco Army of Balarama

This is a prototype project which later can be extended to other important villages of pilgrimage in Vraja Mandal.

The Idea: Encourage civic action, participation and consciousness concerning the deplorable situation of environmental condition in Vrindavan Dham, UP, District of Mathura. This is a citadel of increasing importance to people all over India and from all over the world. with the sudden interest of the world's populace in the last thirty years in spiritual life. Only by giving such visitors a pleasant experience during their visit will they themselves return firstly, and secondly, bring more people. This is the penultimate future of our community.

The Source: Unemployed Youth: By recruiting unemployed youth for the BAL project we help the local community directly in two ways:

[1] By engaging idle young people, and
[2] By helping to clean our environment and create civic consciousness about it.
We propose to take people from all the areas of Vrindavan to generate interest from all sides.

Proposed by the leading industrialist Mahesh Khandelwal and with support of local leaders of the Government, many Ashrams and Business people of Vrindavan, BAL will help to solve many environmental, social and economic problems of Vrindavan.

BAL is supervised by a group of leading citizens. They all work without any remuneration. They connect BAL with the local government authorities. They recruit sponsors for the contributions to the unemployed youth. You can join that group of BAL by becoming the sponsor of one or more volunteers of BAL's crew. Following people are overseeing the development of BAL: Mahesh Khandelwal, Swami B.V. Sadhu Maharaj, Saksi Gopal das (Internet postmaster)

BAL will recruit 100 unemployed youth to serve different functions as volunteers. (Reward Rs 600 per month to each one)

BAL will have a supervisor for every 25 youth (Rs 1200 Each plus Rs 1800 for their Scooter maintenance to oversee the work)

BAL will have two office volunteers who receive the complete information and who will produce a bimonthly financial report of BAL for the meetings to be published via Internet to all Sponsors.( Rs 2000 Each)

Total cost of 100 BAL Volunteers and the administration will be Rs 76000 per month. If donations to BAL exceed the need of the program they will be used to expand the project to other places in Vraja and to fix urgent infrastructures in coordination with the DM and the committee of Vrindavan.

BAL is coordinated by the Sevait Udyan Sharma, a MA in History. (Rs 5000 monthly as allowed)

BAL has all the educational Meetings at the Modi Bhavan in Vrindavan Mathura Road.

BAL can be contacted by mail : Udyan Sharma Taras Mandir Vrindavan 281121 District Mathura UP BAL can be contacted by Phone: 0565- 442669 / 444383 / 444393.

BAL can be contacted by E- mail: vrindak@nde.vsnl.net.in Subject-BAL

BAL will educate people about the importance of Eco consciousness and protect the pilgrims and mother nature. BAL has a Bank-account which can receive donations from all over the world via:

The Vrindavan Institute for Vaisnava Culture and Studies- Department Dham Seva.
UNION Bank of India, Branch Vrindavan Account No. 1577

BAL Volunteers will work in the following areas:
To educate the children.
To educate the senior citizens.
To oversee the cleaning of the Safai Karamcari.
To help the traffic management.
To stop the speeding on the streets.
To control the pollution.
To control the waste management between the houses and the collectors.
To reduce and eventually stop the Noise Pollution.
To guide and protect the pilgrims.
To be ecological guardians for the trees and ponds of Vrindavan.

BAL's volunteers can be easily detected by their white dress with a blue Belt to remind us of Lord Balarama. They will wear a badge of BAL with their name and the name of the sponsor who supports them.

BAL's volunteers will carry Bamboo sticks.

BAL's Coordinator will receive complaints from the local community and visitors and attempt to solve these problems initially through BAL volunteers. Subsequent to this, they may collaborate with other civic-minded groups and/or municipal authorities

BAL's volunteers can level fines in the form of Educational lessons which can escalate to community service or instead, they may make contributions to the Vrindavan ecological development.

BAL will hold competitions amongst its volunteer corps in the different areas of Vrindavan in order to enhance the beauty and efficiency of the municipality. Please consider: For only 20 US $ a month you can be part of the SEVA to Vrindavan Dham by sponsoring your own Volunteer for making Vrindavan look clean and peaceful as everybody expects from such a holy place.

All sponsors are invited to come to the monthly meetings of the group of volunteers. This is our opportunity to help such a urgent situation. Let us join hands to be part of the solution or else we will be part of the problem.

Hoping to share a common ground of interest with all of you, I am awaiting your response.

Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti