Kelwara is around 7 km away from Kumbhalgarh fort, a Mewar fortress in the westerly range of the Aravalli Hills, 75 km from Udaipur. It is a popular tourist site, with many hotels and restaurants. A large number of people are also drawn to Kelwara daily by the market and government offices serving the wider area.

As a result, large quantities of waste are generated by hotels, shops and the public transport vehicles that stop in the town daily. With no current regular street-cleaning or waste-collection systems, refuse often ends up in the surrounding streets and ad-hoc dumping places. This constitutes a risk to public health,  whilst destroying the natural beauty of the area.

Seva Mandir has recently started work on setting up a waste management system in Kelwara. The town’s citizens, the panchayat and tehsil administration, as well as hotels, have shown interest in taking part in this intervention.