Myrada was registered as a Society in 1968 with the specific objective of resettling Tibetan refugees. With this completed by 1979, Myrada started working with the indigenous rural poor in response to invitations from State Governments and the local people.

Currently, Myrada is working directly in 15 locations spread across 11 backward districts in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamilnadu. Through its programmes of self help affinity group development, watershed management, vocational skill building and non-farm enterprise promotion, primary health, primary education and locally essential infrastructure development, Myrada is directly touching the lives of over 1 million people.

In 9 of the above-mentioned 15 project locations Myrada has created Rural Training Centres with training teams and basic training facilities including residential training facilities. These centres are called CIDORs (Centre for Institutional Development and Organisational Reform). The creation of these facilities in rural locations has been a deliberate choice; classrooms sessions are interspersed with field visits and interactions with local communities so that what is discussed in the classroom can also be directly studied in the field.

In regions where it is not directly operational but where Governments and people have approached Myrada for assistance with the implementation of development projects, it is engaged on a longer-term basis to build capacities of the staff of locally based departments and NGOs. Some examples are placing a staff on deputation with the Mewat Development Corporation of Haryana, conducting regular training and exposure programmes for the Uttar Pradesh Land Development Corporation, for IFAD and UNDP Project teams from the North-eastern and Central States of India and from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Viet Nam, etc.