Current Programmes

9. National Green Corps Programme

Ministry of Environment & Forests, Govt. of India has initiated National Green Corps (NGC) programme for implementation through the mechanism of Eco-Clubs set up in schools from Class V-XII all over the country. Under this scheme 250 schools have been selected from each district. Each school is being provided financial aid of Rs. 2,500/- per year. Besides, trainings and retrainings are conducted for Incharge-teachers and resource material on environment aspects is provided to each school. Objectives of the scheme are :-

·         To make children understand environment and environmental problems.

·         To provide environmental education opportunities for school children.

·         To utilize the unique position of school children as conduits for awareness of the society at large.

·         To facilitate children’s participation in decision making in areas related to environment & development.

·         To bring children into direct contact with the environmental problems facing the society they live in and make them think of solutions.

·         To involve children in action based programmes related to environment in their surroundings.

Each NGC school has constituted eco-clubs of 30-35 students to take up environment awareness activities under the supervision of eco-club incharge teacher. In all 5000 schools in Punjab are covered under this programme. Schools are suggested to take up following activities:

·      Organise seminars, debate, lectures & popular talks on environmental issues in the school.

·      Field visits to environmentally important sites including polluted and degraded sites, wildlife parks, etc.

·      Organise rallies, marches, human chains and street theater at public places with a view to spread environmental awareness.

·      Action based activities like tree plantation, cleanliness drives both within and outside the school campus.

·      Grow kitchen gardens, maintain vermi-composting pits, construct water-harvesting structures in school, practice paper recycling, etc.

·      Prepare inventories of polluting sources and forward it to enforcement agencies.

·      Organise awareness programmes against defecation in public places, pasting posters in public places and to propagate personal hygiene habits like washing hands before meals, etc.

·      Maintenance of public places like parks, gardens both within and outside the  school campus.

·      Mobilise action against environmentally unsound practices like garbage disposal in unauthorized places, unsafe disposal of hospital waste, etc.

·      Celebrate two environmentally important days in a befitting manner.

Punjab State Council for Science & Technology (PSCST) organized a 3 days training programme for Master Trainers of Punjab & Chandigarh at Golden Jubilee Conference Hall, Panjab University, Chandigarh from January 29-31, 2008 with the support of Ministry of Environment & Forests, Govt. of India. In all 80 Master Trainers (4 from each district) from Punjab and 4 Master Trainers from Chandigarh participated in the training. Eminent experts delivered lectures covering environment issues ranging from state of air and water resources, environmental degradation due to pollution from anthropogenic and other activities, biodiversity issues, climate change, depletion of ozone layer, simple ways of testing water quality using water quality testing kit, etc. Entire programme was divided into Inaugural Session and six Technical Sessions. These Master Trainers will provide training to 250 eco-club In-charge Teachers in each district.

Contact Persons: Dr. S.S Ladhar, ssladhar@pscst.com