Green Champion award for GNDU

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 20

Guru Nanak Dev University on Wednesday received its certificate from the Mahatma Gandhi National Council of Rural Education (MGNCRE), Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India, naming it the District Green Champion for the year 2021-22.

The winners’ list was announced by MGNCRE in February earlier this year. The award is part of the ‘Swachhta Expansion and Awareness Campaign’, a government initiative.

Swachhta Action Plan (SAP) includes best practices in the areas of sanitation, hygiene, waste management, water management, energy management, and greenery management as the criteria to select the Green Champions from each district of India.

The award was received by a university delegate on behalf of Prof Jaspal Singh Sandhu, Vice-Chancellor, GNDU. It was given by Indu Malhotra, IAS, Secretary, Lokpal and State Election Commission, and Managing Director, Punjab Financial Corporation, during the day-long mini-national conference, SAP 2022 on ‘Mentoring Institutional Social Responsibility and Facilitating Community Engagement’ organised by MGNCRE in Chandigarh.

The certificate states that ‘the institution has successfully elevated the Swacchta Action Plan’. The university has been recognised for several of its initiatives to make the campus green and switch to clean energy. A zero-liquid-discharge wastewater treatment facility housing an aeration tank, tube settler followed by two-stage oxidation-cum-polishing ponds, a solid-liquid resource management cell, a landscaping department, and a separate stormwater sewer for water management are all available at the institution. It has more than 90 per cent green spaces in a sprawling campus of 500 acres. About 150 tree species are available on the campus and there are more than 30,000 trees and shrubs. The botanical garden of the university was established in 1975 and is spread over 25 acres. It has about 500 species of trees, shrubs and medicinal plants. It houses an open-air theatre, lily pool, aquatic pond, fern house and a herbal garden. The target now is to achieve 100 per cent reuse of treated wastewater in the botanical garden, significant tree planting, a battery-operated fleet of buses for students and staff, a pilot project has already been launched and rooftop solar harvesting for sustainable growth.

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