A Maharashtra-based NGO is in the process of adopting the ancestral village of Gen Bipin Rawat, India's first Chief of Defence Staff who was killed in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu earlier this month.

The Latur-based Dr. Harivanshrai Bachchan Prabodhan Pratishthan (HBPP) has been granted permission by the Pauri Garhwal district authorities to carry out development activities in Saina village, which lacks proper road connectivity.

HBPP founder Nivrutti Yadav said he would visit Saina village next week to get an understanding of the terrain and plan development activities there.

Yadav told PTI that HBPP will use its own resources and seek help from the government in setting up health and education facilities, build roads and also reach out to farmers.

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat told PTI that the process of adopting the village by HBPP has been set in motion.

Representatives of the NGO will visit the Saina village and draft a plan on the development activities to be carried out there, he said.

Rawat said he had written to the District Magistrate to apprise him of HBPP’s intention to carry out development work in the village.

In a letter to the HBPP founder, District Magistrate Vijay Kumar Jogdande said, "...you have been granted permission to undertake development activities, as per rules, in Saina in Pauri Garhwal, the ancestral village of the brave son of the nation General Bipin Rawat."

According to Yadav, HBPP has been carrying out social activities for the past 18 years and had also sent relief material to Uttarakhand during the 2013 Kedarnath floods.