PARDA was started by a self-motivated group of intellectuals to work in Nuapada District in the year 1999, with the spirit of volunteerism and Gandhian ideology and spirit. PARDA selected its areas of operation such as Nuapada and Boden block of Nuapada District at large. This geographical area is complex, diverse and risk-prone and is considered among the most backward regions of the country, popularly known as KBK region of Orissa.
PARDA has been extending various information and services to the socio-economically weaker and marginalized sections with a focus on the schedule castes and the scheduled tribe, ‘Dalit’ for enabling them to realize the causes and effects of their deprivations and to assert their rights on their own. The most important operational strategy of PARDA has remained in identifying itself with the sections of the population that the organization works with and to let the same sections to identify themselves with PARDA, as well