In a bid to make the farming community in state aware about the ill effects of burning of paddy residue , NSS volunteers of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU) launched a Mega Awareness Campaign. The beginning of campaign was marked by the flagging off a campaign rally by the Punjab Pollution Control Board Superintending Engineer Mr Sandeep Behl and Dr. Satyavan Rampal, Director Students Welfare cum Estate Officer of the varsity. Under the campaign , the NSS volunteers will hold awareness rallies in nearby villages of Ludhiana mainly including Jhamat, Malakpur, Ayali Khurd , Barewal, Birmi, and Barsem.
DSW-cum- Estate Officer, Dr Rampal said that the university had been providing technical assistance to various state government departments who had been engaged in the process of imparting know how of technology to use the straw as animal feed in rajasthan and other states. Mr Behl said that Pollution Board had been regularly monitoring the situation and had been identifying the offenders so as to prevent more such occurances.
University officials, Dr. Sanjeev Uppal, Dean PGS, Dr. Ramneek, Director, College of Animal Biotechnology, Dr. R S Sethi, Er. Gurbakhshish Gill, XEN and Er. Paramjeet Singh from PPCB also attended the programme.
Mrs. Nidhi Sharma, NSS Programme Coordinator, GADVASU informed that a total of 120 NSS volunteers from university’s three constituent colleges - College of Fisheries, College of Animal Biotechnology and College of Dairy Science and Technology participated in the rally. Wearing NSS T-shirts and carrying banners ‘Say No to Stubble burning , the volunteers toured these villages and held one on one interaction with farmers so as to make them aware about the adverse impact of their act of stubble burning on health and lifestyle of their future generations . “
NSS Programme Officer, Dr Sivakumar of CODST said the volunteers were imparted training as to how they can counsel the farmers so as to exhort them not to opt for burning of paddy residue in their fields. Volunteers invoked the holy Baani of Shri Guru Nanak Dev ji who always exhorted for the preservation of nature and Mother earth”, added Dr CS Mukhopadhyay, NSS Programme Officer of CABT.
Dr. SS Hassan, NSS Programme Officer of COF informed that the NSS volunteers have also been asked to identify the farmers who have been chronically indulging in this bad practice of burning paddy waste in their fields so that they can be counseled by experts accordingly in days to come.