The most critical problem in rural India is degradation and depletion of land, forest and natural resources. Reforestation and ecological regeneration of degraded land has become an important issue.
Energy is the main source of development and also ecological destruction.
Increasing energy consumption in the industrial sector has posed a threat to shortage of energy supply for other critical needs. In the city, most of the rural migrants end up as jobless squatters and this has an adverse impact on the urban environment. If development along with use of natural resources is not sustainability oriented, very soon changes in the environment and ecology will outstrip the political and economical development of technology. There is a need for far reaching changes in technology and use of energy sources, economic ideas and institutions, social and political systems, and in the philosophical and ethical base of modern industrial civilization. To combat this alarming situation, the ICF supports projects based on self-help system to promote sustainable development in specific rural areas of the country.