The most important goal before the people of Visakhapatnam is to launch a green movement to create a green buffer to counter industrial pollution, says founder of ExNoRa M.B. Nirmal.
“Industry is required because it generates employment. Hence plantation should be taken up by all citizens. Children should be made to plant trees to celebrate birthday or other occasions since it gives them a sense of responsibility or ownership,” Mr. Nirmal told The Hindu .
Wherever there is a compound wall or a campus, trees should be grown as protection is assured, he said
Besides, organisations such as ports should have corporate environment responsibility and employees’ environment responsibility by taking up plantation of trees.
ExNoRa has been a trailblazer in solid waste management and city beautification beginning with Adayar in Chennai in 1989. Presently it has 44,000 chapters with about 99 per cent in Tamil Nadu. Mr. Nirmal was recently in the city in connection with S. Vjay Kumar's Paryavarana Margadarsi Vaisakhi's plans to launch a sustained, citizen-based programme on solid waste management and other civic and environmental issues.
He was all praise for Visakhapatnam for its cleanliness giving full credit to the government and GVMC. Generally garbage was found on streets and it was not the case with Visakhapatnam, he said. The beach was well-maintained with facilities for people and the beautification was tastefully done, Mr. Nirmal said.
For the success of the planned programme, participation of people through motivation was important, he said. ExNoRa's only strategy for implementing its programmes is people's participation. “Instead of some people taking upon the task themselves, if 10 teams go and do 10 things for an hour like clearing garbage, removing the posters, painting the walls etc, people will get motivated and join it, he said. Training schoolchildren and delegating work to them also can be done.
Some training has been given to Paryavaran Margadarsi Vaisakhi and more will be imparted by IITians and MITians who are trainers of trainers, he said.
