Mumbai (PTI): Maharashtra-based Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) has won the prestigious Globe Sustainability Research Award for 2009.

The award was presented to NARI Director Anil Rajvanshi by Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden at a ceremony in Stockholm on Wednesday.

The goal of the Globe Sustainability Research Award is to discover and encourage researchers and research institutes contributing to field of sustainability research.

"This award recognises and confirms NARI's philosophy that high tech solutions based on local resources can be developed by a rural organization and are appropriate to solve the basic problems of rural areas of the world," Mr. Rajvanshi said in a release from Stockholm.

The NARI project on development of a low grade ethanol filled cylinder, which provides energy to produce high quality light output in a lantern, as well as clean fuel for cooking systems, was the outstanding example of sustainability research, based on the mandated criteria", Mohan Munasinghe, Chairman of the Globe Sustainability Research Award jury, said.

The Globe Sustainability Research Award is judged on several criteria, including originality, practicality, and contributions to humanity through economic gains, social development and environmental protection.

NARI, located in Phaltan in Satara district has developed a lantern which runs on locally produced fuel. It produces light equivalent to that from a 100 W electric bulb.

The lantern also doubles up as a cooking stove thereby solving the twin problem of cooking and lighting for rural households.