Monsoon season of 1992 witnessed hundreds of diarrhoeal death of malnourished children in Jowhar and Mokhada Talukas of Thane district. This death Macabre was first noticed by four MSW students of Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work in Mumbai. After giving day & night service, team saved the lives of hundreds of Grade IV babies.

Initially the students started working informally in the Jowhar Tehsil. The area is hilly with dense forest and each village has 5 to 10 hamlets situated at the distance of 2 to 4 kilometers on the hills surrounding the village. Due to this, accessibility was a huge problem and the foremost task on hand was to make a primary assessment of the situation. No voluntary agency had ever ventured in these areas and government records were not complete and updated.

As the team started acquainting themselves with the tribals and their state of affairs, their resolve to work for the tribals became stronger. But they needed organization and financial support to do something substantial. The group of students worked on private donation for couple of years, but the ground situation worsened as the days went by.

The continuing deaths and the dismal health conditions along with the paucity of government facilities in these tribal areas thus became a triggering point for them with other members to join hand together to form of Navdrushti and register it as a trust in 1996.