Ahmedabad:
Two army officers, who are currently students of the Armed Forces Program (AFP) at IIMA, won the Green Initiative competition held at Kronos-2010 which concluded recently. Kronos-2010 was projected as the 'agri-biz zone of Confluence-2010' and had run parallel to it. The army officers, a Major and a Lt-Colonel, won because it was possible to implement their ideas at the institute level.
"There were two aspects to our presentation," said Lt. Col Shubhojit Bhattacharya. "One was to create awareness about climate change and carbon footprint, and the other to find ways and means of reducing carbon footprint at the institute. The idea was to suggest 'green' practices which could be adopted with the use of green technology available on hand."
Bhattacharya and Major Adityavardhan Pathak had formed a team - AFP-Green Olives - and presented their ideas which, according to them, is quite affordable for an institute like IIMA. The unique thing about their ideas on 'green' practices is that they can be adopted both at the individual and at institution levels.
At the individual level, for instance, students and professors can either walk or use a bicycle for short journeys, use washing machines to wash clothes every other day, switch off appliances when leaving the room and practice vegan ways of living.
For affordable green technology available on hand, the two army officers suggested using eco-friendly equipment such as power-bar for PCs, mobile phone adaptors, energy efficient kettle, desk lamps, and solar powered LEDs, among others.
"IIMA has a total 1650 rooms," Bhattacharya said. "This includes dormitories, quarters, faculty houses and staff houses. Use of eco-friendly equipment in all these rooms is possible as most of the equipment suggested by us is cheap. These have their uses at the macro and micro-levels."
He said that while solar-powered LEDs, eco cartridges, pond oxygenators, solar floodlights, desk lamps and water harvesting systems and equipment could be installed at the macro level, other equipment such as PC power-bars, energy efficient kettles and mobile phone adaptors could be installed in the institute at the micro level.
"When we calculated the total amount the institute would have to spend for both macro and micro-level equipment, the outlay came to Rs88,33,640," Bhattacharya said.
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