Saturday, August 20, 2011
Environment friendly Campuses
It's been while since I posted anything for this blog. Blame it on the hectic schedules and/or pathetic Internet connections that most of the Indian colleges offer. All of this is of course besides the point. What I want talk about is one aspect of my college campus, which I really appreciate; its omnipresent greenery. Its in the middle of a desert yet it is more green than all of the urban localities I have seen, combined. Advantages of living in such a campus, as you rightly guessed, are many, but what I want to talk about is the need of many more such campuses.
With a large number of companies setting up (insanely) huge office campuses in the country and for catering these companies an even greater number of colleges being set up, I see a large untapped sector which can give a lot more attention to environment and its problems. I do agree that most of the aforementioned institutions already pay a attention to the needs of the environment but the questions remains if that's enough. Also, most of this "attention" is voluntary. Some colleges do it because , well, they are colleges and they ought to do the right thing. Some companies do it because at times people who are NOT corporate stooges take decisions there(hail Infosys and the ex-CEO Narayan murthy). What if every educational institution and every industrial campus is bound to this "favor" to the environment.
It is imperative that this "green-campus" strategy is adopted by all Companies and Educational Institutions alike. There were some 40 odd engineering colleges in the non-metro city I used to live-in. Imagine how much would the city's environment benefit if all them decide to go green. and that was just the number of engineering colleges. I don't mean, 'pretty green' here. Most of the institutes go for 'well maintained' garden in the name of greenery and personally I feel these namesake (pretty) gardens take up more resources from the environment in terms of water and nutrients than what they give back to it. I am talking about a defined percentage of land in every such campus to be dedicated to as many trees as possible. Diversity in those trees is of course expected.
City authorities can impose this on all such existing campuses. If that is too difficult for them, they can at least make sure that permissions for new college/industrial campuses come with this restriction.
Planting trees is probably the simplest and most economical thing that they can do, why not make it compulsory. By law.
chew over it.
-Siddhant Jain
GYV11-270
With a large number of companies setting up (insanely) huge office campuses in the country and for catering these companies an even greater number of colleges being set up, I see a large untapped sector which can give a lot more attention to environment and its problems. I do agree that most of the aforementioned institutions already pay a attention to the needs of the environment but the questions remains if that's enough. Also, most of this "attention" is voluntary. Some colleges do it because , well, they are colleges and they ought to do the right thing. Some companies do it because at times people who are NOT corporate stooges take decisions there(hail Infosys and the ex-CEO Narayan murthy). What if every educational institution and every industrial campus is bound to this "favor" to the environment.
It is imperative that this "green-campus" strategy is adopted by all Companies and Educational Institutions alike. There were some 40 odd engineering colleges in the non-metro city I used to live-in. Imagine how much would the city's environment benefit if all them decide to go green. and that was just the number of engineering colleges. I don't mean, 'pretty green' here. Most of the institutes go for 'well maintained' garden in the name of greenery and personally I feel these namesake (pretty) gardens take up more resources from the environment in terms of water and nutrients than what they give back to it. I am talking about a defined percentage of land in every such campus to be dedicated to as many trees as possible. Diversity in those trees is of course expected.
City authorities can impose this on all such existing campuses. If that is too difficult for them, they can at least make sure that permissions for new college/industrial campuses come with this restriction.
Planting trees is probably the simplest and most economical thing that they can do, why not make it compulsory. By law.
chew over it.
-Siddhant Jain
GYV11-270
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
Posts
Liked your article.btw which college do you study in? St.Xavier's(thats where i study) and IIT powai too have huge "green campus).
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that reputed Mumbai colleges already have large green campuses. Personally, I have visited IIT Powai and really appreciate their efforts. Their shuttle buses(Tum-Tum as they like to call it) are noteworthy. Not only are they convenient but they also avoid a lot of exhaust going in the atmosphere by individual rickshaws which students would have otherwise taken.
Hopefully, many other colleges will follow the same suit.