GDNU announces a slew of green initiatives amid Covid

Neha Saini
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, July 14

Adding to its botanical heritage amid lockdown, GNDU recently opened its botanical garden, a first in the region, for its faculty and researchers. The botanical garden has diverse collection of trees and shrubs, besides a conservatory and a display area with plant species. Now, to create awareness and educate more people about its garden, GNDU’s department of botanical and environmental sciences has compiled a handbook on plant diversity of GNDU botanical garden, written and illustrated by Prof Avinash Kaur Nagpal, Dr Gurveen Kaur and Prof Satwinderjeet Kaur of the department. “The handbook will serve as an informational read for students and professionals of scientific and cultural fields, as well as plant lovers who have keen interest in floral diversity,” said VC Prof Jaspal Sandhu.

He further informed that the botanical garden initiative was funded by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, under the Assistance to Botanical Garden(ABG) scheme for “Ex- situ conservation and propagation of RET species in the Botanical Garden of GNDU”. It’s engaged in collection, cultivation and conservation of rare, endangered and threatened (RET), medicinal, cacti and succulent plant species. The garden has expanded significantly to include new structures like conservatory, shade house, moss house for rescuing plant diversity and creating aesthetically pleasing refuges from modern life. The handbook is titled “Plant Diversity of GNDU Botanical Garden” and information on plant names (botanical and common), their families, flowering and fruiting times and global distribution of 44 species of trees and shrubs along with the illustrations for each plant species.

In its bid to transform the campus into a green haven, the varsity authorities will also carry out large scale green drive, where volunteers of Baba Sewa Singh Khadoor Saheb will plant 2,500 saplings of varied species inside its campus. GNDU has also allotted space inside the campus for developing sacred forest, a concept of mini forest inspired by Miyawaki forest technique. It has already announced to adopt digital portals for administrative and academic purposes in a bid to go paperless.