As a part of “Clean Ganga” campaign, students guided by some faculty members of the Indian Institue of Technology(IIT) Roorkee are working on a project to raise an amount of 50 lakh for building bio-toilets on the ghats of river Ganga. The project highlights the alarming degree of river’s degradation and to control water pollution, the crowdfunded amount will also be used for designing drones. Named as”Aviral Ganga”, the project is guided by UNESCO, UNEP, Centre for Environment Education and South Asian Youth Environment Network(SAYEN) and was announced at the “Cognisance”, IIT Roorkee’s annual fest.
As reported by NDTV,”A team of 70 students from IIT Roorkee, guided by the faculty members, will be holding a series of the event throughout the year to raise funds to the tune of Rs. 50 lakh for the cause. It will then be handed over to the partnering NGO Shuddhi which will take up the further task of building bio-toilets,” said Anant Pratap Singh, Convenor for the campaign.
He also added that “During the festival, a drone making competition will also be organised to make drones capable of monitoring pollution level of rivers and other water bodies,” he said.
The students have also felicitated six “unsung heroes” whose work have been acknowledged but have done considerable work for the “Clean Ganga” campaign. They included Vikas Chandra, founder of the Ganga Bachao Andalon 2000; Jaiprakash Dabral, founder of the Himalayan Chipko Foundation; Akash Sinha, founder of Omni Present Robot Tech; Ankit, co-founder of Help Us Green; and Siddhant Aggarwal, co-founder of Veditam Ganga.
A video of Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu , who was supposed to inaugurate the three-day conference was played in the starting of the event. In his video message, he talked about similar projects to help Railway Ministry in its functioning.
As reported by NDTV, “I have asked IIT people to submit any proposals for modernising railways and increasing consumer satisfaction. If found feasible, we will develop them”, he said.