india

Updated: Jul 04, 2019 10:20 IST

The Rajasthan government has ordered a plantation drive under which every new student in state-run engineering colleges in the state will have to plant a tree in the campus this academic session.

“Each new student in government engineering colleges of Rajasthan will plant a tree in the campus this academic session and will look after the trees until they graduate,” said technical education minister Dr Subhash Garg.

The minister said this was among the four initiatives taken for eco-conservation on engineering campuses.

There are 11 engineering colleges in Rajasthan running out of eight campuses. Buildings of three engineering colleges are under construction. Dholpur and Karauli engineering colleges run out of Bharatpur college’s campus, and Baran from the campus of Jhalawara engineering college. Each of these colleges has an average of 300 seats but had around 100 admissions each.

The minister said he will inspect the engineering colleges in August when the admission process is over to verify if there are as many plants as new students.

The other three initiatives for conservation of environment are a pond for water conservation, cleanliness and events on Gandhian philosophy.

Garg said that faculty and students will be encouraged to do ‘shram daan’ to dig ponds, which will help in conserving rainwater.

“We firmly believe that Gandhi’s philosophy should be taught even in engineering colleges but for now, under the 150th birth anniversary celebrations, we have asked the colleges to organize debate competitions on the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi,” Garg said.

He is also the Sanskrit education minister and is proposing a centre for Gandhian studies at state’s only Sanskrit university, the Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Rajasthan Sanskrit University (JRRSU).

The minister has taken special interest in improving the condition of government engineering colleges in Rajasthan after he became part of Ashok Gehlot’s council of ministers.

He said that he had asked principals of engineering colleges and vice chancellors of Rajasthan Technical University and Bikaner Technical University to focus on more student-oriented schemes.

“We need to make our engineering colleges attractive to students. There has been a drop in admissions over past few years. There was a time when students from 17 states studied at our engineering colleges,” the minister said.

He added that the department will development Centre for e-Governance (CEG) in Jaipur as the nodal centre for training and placement, and set up ‘Vidyarthi Sewa Kendras’ at each college for students to get their documents (such as mark sheets and migration certificates) from the college itself instead of going to the headquarters of Rajasthan Technical University in Kota.

Garg said he had recently done a micro-level review of all engineering colleges through three meetings on June 10, 20 and 30. “We have identified the problems and will soon address them,” he added.