The Hindu : National Green Corps for eco-friendly `Bhogi' bonfire

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 11, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

National Green Corps for eco-friendly `Bhogi' bonfire

HYDERABAD, JAN. 10. The National Green Corps of the Department of Environment, Forests and Science and Technology, spearheading the campaign for eco-friendly festivals, has come out with a fresh set of suggestions for celebrating the `Bhogi' bonfire in an environment-friendly way.

The plea is to go natural and use only cow dung that too in limited quantity to decorate the rangolis in the front of the houses. These cow dung balls when dried could later be used for making the bonfires. This contains plenty of methanol, ammonia, phenol, indole compounds, formalin and it irradiates the pathogenic micro-organisms disinfecting the surroundings.

"Instead of cow dung balls, `Gobbillu', as per the tradition, these days a lot of waste material like good wood, tyres, tubes, plastic, rubber, etc., are being burnt causing air pollution. At dawn especially when there is little or no air movement smoke settles at the ground level and along with the fog causes smog that can be hazardous to health," explained W. G. Prasanna Kumar, Director, NGC, at a press conference here on Saturday.

Green rating for schools

The National Green Corps is planning to introduce `green rating' for schools in the State through which the educational institutions are to be graded on the basis of the general cleanliness, drinking water facility, toilets provision, campaigns taken up for cleaner environment, field visits, work, etc.

"Schools will be asked to self-evaluate themselves with regard to certain standardised parameters that we will be announcing soon.

The grading will start from April this year," said W.G. Prasanna Kumar, Director, NGC, here on Saturday.

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