Students of various city colleges will now don the role of green ambassadors and drive home the message of environment conservation in their neighbourhood.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) launched its Green Brigade Campaign, an initiative to involve students in creating clean and green city, as part of its e-LAWN project at Loyola College on Tuesday.
Inaugurating the campaign, Mayor M.Subramanian stressed the need to conserve natural resources and mitigate global warming. He said the civic body would soon distribute saplings to parents of newborns in the city. On the ban on plastics on the Marina beach, he said five locations along the beach have been identified for setting up water purification plants as sale of drinking water in sachets had been banned. Pointing out that only 20 per cent of the nearly 60,000 saplings planted over the two years have grown, he said community participation was important to sustain such measures and youngsters had a pivotal role in reaching out to society. He also released posters of e-LAWN project.
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Historian S.Muthiah said though several plans had been chalked over the years to improve the environment, their implementation had not been successful. Projects must be implemented within a stipulated period and the authorities concerned must ensure their sustainability.
On the e-LAWN project, Chairman of the Corporate Social Responsibility sub-committee, CII Southern Region, T.T.Ashok, said that it would focus on issues related to air, land, water, noise and energy. Besides creating awareness about water, energy conservation, noise abatement and reducing air pollution among people, two locations in the city, Kannagi Nagar and Thiruvalluvar Nagar, have been identified for improvement of environment. So far, students of seven city colleges have volunteered to be part of the Green Brigade.
They would be mentored on various environmental issues and helped to provide better environment in their college or area.
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A website for the e-LAWN project would soon be launched, he said. Loyola College principal Albert Muthumalai spoke.