MAKAUT plants 40,000 saplings in the campuses spread across its 219 affiliated colleges

“In large parts of the state, Amphan has caused heavy devastation including environment and ecology….The theme of the 2020 World Environment Day is “Celebrated Bio-diversity”. Attention to this may also be bestowed,” Mr Dhankar said in his letter.

Biswabrata Goswami

Statesman News Service

KRISHNAGAR, 5 JUNE: Keeping in mind the extended damages caused by the super cyclone Amphan, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT) has planted 40,000 saplings in the campuses spread across its 219 affiliated colleges to save the environment and ecology on the day of the World Environment Day, today.

The university authorities had appealed to all its students, employees and teachers to participate the programme on views to compensate the recent damages of greenery by planting saplings.

Mr Jagdeep Dhankar, Governor of West Bengal had also sent a letter to the vice-chancellor of the university, appealing to avail the opportunity of World Environment Day on 5 June so that maximum effort can be made to plant more trees on the campus and off the campus.

“In large parts of the state, Amphan has caused heavy devastation including environment and ecology….The theme of the 2020 World Environment Day is “Celebrated Bio-diversity”. Attention to this may also be bestowed,” Mr Dhankar said in his letter.

Dr Saikat Maitra, vice-chancellor of MAKAUT, who planted a few saplings in the varsity’s Haringhata campus along with Anup Kumar Mukherjee, assistant registrar and other teachers and students, said, “We have started planting saplings from 1 June as a part of continuous planting programme. In addition to this, we have given a special focus on mass plantation this year because the Amphan, an extremely severe super cyclone wreaked havoc in the state and uprooted thousands of matured trees. To compensate for the huge losses of our greenery, we appealed to our students to plant sapling in their locality and it would be treated as NSS activities.”

Mr Mukherjee, assistant registrar, when asked said, “We have planted around 250 saplings in our both two campuses and we also donated saplings to the neighborhood. The students who planted saplings in their locality have been asked to send photos of their activities to the concerned department and the department will maintain a register to award numbers to the students.”

He also said the university had also planted 400 seedlings each of Papiya and Aloevera a few months ago, but these were not destroyed in the cyclone.

Apart from this, the Nadia district magistrate Vibhu Goel, superintendent of police, Zafar Ajmal Kidwai and Nadia district zilla-parishad sabhadhipati, Rikta Kundu planted saplings of varieties of trees inside the premises of the district collectorate office in Krishnagar.