Sunil K.G. and Saibanna Pujari are two young men who believe in doing rather than talking about environment protection. The duo, cycling across the State to create awareness about a host of environment-related issues, arrived in Bidar on Tuesday. They participated in a tree plantation drive on the Nayi Ka Kabr monument premises on Wednesday morning and left for Chincholi in Kalaburagi taluk by afternoon.
They have travelled around 2,000 kilometres, covering 18 districts in 20 days till now. All along the way, they have organised tree plantation drives, demonstrated how to harvest rain water from rooftops and how to set up mini-sewage treatment plants for individual households. They began in April, just before World Earth Day. Their trip will end in Bengaluru on June 5, World Environment Day. "We want to tell people that they need not depend on the government for changing our lives. We can do it ourselves by learning about grey water use, plantation, and decentralised sewage treatment," said Sunil.
Sunil, who worked for a German civil engineering company, and Pujari, who used to work for a mechanical engineering company, met at a cycling event in Bengaluru organised by the Go Green cycling club. "We thought of a cycling trip around Karnataka for the cause of the environment. And the next thing we did was to quit our jobs," said Pujari. While Sunil is setting up his own consultancy in sustainable engineering technologies, Pujari wants to start his own business. The Forest Department, Directorate of Urban Land Transport, and Karnataka State Pollution Control Board are supporting the trip.
Anurag Tewari, Deputy Commissioner, said the district administration was planning to plant one crore saplings across the five taluks, with people’s participation. "We have successfully completed cleaning and dredging of 150 tanks and other traditional water bodies. We will complete the task by planting trees that are useful and provide shade and bio mass," he said.