Ecological balance is crucial to sustainable development and unless the government and people themselves stick to stringent norms of not violating the eco-norms, it will be a planet difficult to live on said speakers at awareness programme for faculty members of PVP Institute of Technology.
The programme, sponsored by the Srinivasa Sales and Service Private Limited in association with The Hindu, brought out some interesting facts that made the teachers think about the environmental issues on the college campus on Monday. “The worst part of reducing pollution is not adhering to the implementation schedule or norms,” said Acharya Nagarjuna University Department of Environment Head A.V.V.S. Swamy. The government, instead of looking after the benefit of people, was allowing unhindered exploitation of material like bauxite, which acts as a sponge to retain water while it rains and releases slowly, flowing into the perennial rivers.
Bauxite mining would destroy many rivers, he opined. “I strongly demand stopping of bauxite mining,” the professor said. While 2.5 lakh engineers are produced every year from the state, only 1 per cent work for the State and none bothers about the ecology and does not make a research for sustainable development, he said.
Producing alternative energy is the need of the hour and year-after year the annual environment days come and go and promises are made, but dependence of Petroleum and Coal reserves has not reduced, said Regional Environmental Engineer S. Venkateswarlu. Change in lifestyle has given boost to the GDP, but at the same time it has led to global warming, affects of which the entire world is facing, he opined. The environmental engineer pointed out that massive food wastage at marriages and at home will lead to loss of energy and also production of large amount of garbage. Vast plastic waste was also acting against the protection of nature, he opined. The human lifestyles were moving away from the nature to a large extent and though an effort was being made, it was not sufficient, he opined. The Groundwater Department Deputy Director A. Varaprasada Rao made the faculty members to take an oath to protect the eco-system and conserve water in all possible ways. He gave a PowerPoint presentation on the various aspects of water conservation taking the help of photographs published in The Hindu and other vernacular dailies. Others who attended included Srinivasa Sales vice-president operations commander Gopi, and PVPSIT principal P. Venkateswarlu.