Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Varsity institutes ‘green campus’ awards for colleges

MADURAI: Starting from this year’s World Environment Day (June 5), the Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) will present ‘green campus’ awards to colleges every year.

The award was instituted to encourage all colleges under the MKU to take environment-friendly initiatives and contribute towards protection of environment.

R. Karapaga Kumaravel, Vice-Chancellor, said here on Thursday that the university would identify those institutions that were actively engaged in environment protection within their campus for the award.

He was addressing the inaugural function of an ‘awareness training programme on biodiversity and conservation to self-help groups of Tamil Nadu,’ organised by the Centre for Biodiversity and Forest Studies, MKU.

The Vice-Chancellor asked the Centre’s Director, K. Muthuchelian, to evolve certain benchmarks and an objective assessment methodology for identifying the colleges for presenting this award. All colleges — affiliated, autonomous, self-financing and constituent — would be eligible to participate.

Urging the youngsters and members of SHGs to be pro-active towards environment protection, Dr. Karpaga Kumaravel said that every institution had a social obligation to protect nature and ecological balance “and this is what the Centre for Biodiversity and Forest Studies at the MKU has been doing.”

As a part of its work in biodiversity, a compact disc on ‘Madurai Kamaraj University Campus Biodiversity’ was prepared with data on flora and fauna on the university campus.

The Vice-Chancellor released the CD and presented the first copy to Muthiah Mariappan, former Vice-Chancellor of Bharathidasan University.

In his introductory remarks about the training programme, Prof. Muthuchelian said that the SHG members would be trained in aquatic, terrestrial, medicinal and tourism activities. The one-day training session, sponsored by the National Biodiversity Authority, was attended by members of SHGs from various districts in the State.

T. Marimuthu, Secretary, National Academy of Biological Sciences, and M.P. Ramanujam, Department of Plant Sciences, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Post Graduate Studies, were among those who spoke.

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