Established in 1977, Loka Kalyan Parishad (LKP) was the brainchild of a handful of national luminaries who though placed in the highest echelons of government/academia/judiciary, recognized the need for a forum through which direct action initiatives could be taken to alleviate the widespread poverty prevalent in rural India.

Sudhangshu Chakravarty, former Vice Chancellor of the Rajendra Agricultural University and recipient of the National ‘Padma Shree’ award for his work with small farmers in the Gandak/Kosi area in Bihar, the then Chief Justice of West Bengal, Shankar Prasad Mitra and the Member Secretary of the West Bengal State Planning Board, Narendra Nath Sen took the initiative to establish Loka Kalyan Parishad as a voluntary organisation which would primarily focus on action initiatives that would bring about a qualitative change in the lives of the underprivileged.