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World Environment Day| Rooting for hara bhara Lucknow
We look at how people from the city are moving mountains to make sure the message of love for the environment goes across.
There are a lot of measures that Lucknowites take to express their TLC for the environment. And, on World Environment Day today, we look at how people from the city are moving mountains to make sure the message of love for the environment goes across.
Vegetables ab chatt par hain...
Green entrepreneur and Child Development Professional Shachi Singh says work for the environment should never stop and that’s what she has been doing for seven years.
“I always wanted to take greenery to the homes of people and I am on my way. While terraces were lying vacant, people complained: ‘Organic farming ke liye jagah kahan hai?’ Getting pesticide-free vegetables was a distant dream. That’s when my team, comprising common people, especially those who love gardening, came into existence and we started setting up units across the city and state. In the last few years, we have decided to involve marginal households. That’s when the idea of sack vegetation came about along with creating home-made fertiliser to sell. This way, we have involved 500 underprivileged houses that grow for themselves and earn from it now,” says Singh.
Taking Lucknow to world stage
Muskan Jyoti Samiti founder Mewa Lal is the mind behind the Municipal Solid Waste Management being carried out at various locations across the country for the last 20 years. “We developed socially-technically-economically suitable and self-sustainable solid waste disposal system, which not only helps local bodies in effective removal of garbage but also reduces the burden of operation and maintenance and generates employment for unskilled workforce,” he says. His units are units functional at IIT-Kanpur, HAL and more.
“We have cleaned and filtered house sewage water to an extent that it can breed aquatic life easily. This reduced the side effects of urbanization. I want to my units the gift from India to the world for a better tomorrow. Jitni yeh meri dharti hai utni sab ki hai,” adds Lal.
Not without farmers
Entrepreneur Jyotsna Habibullah came up with the monthly farmers market that was sketched around the idea of saving land of orchard owners and farmers.
“The way orchard owners and farmers were losing their land to various development and planning projects made me execute the idea of mango festival. We brought customers, orchards and farmers under one roof to understand the importance of staying close to nature. We started organising the Mango Festival in June and Farmers Market every month. I feel still it’s long way to go for me and my team, as our aim is saving our farmers at any cost.”
Park it right!
Being a Nature lover for the last 40 years, social activist Anju Varshney feels even a small step can be a big leap. “It started with reviving the greenery around our house and today it reached Shree Ram Park in Nehru Enclave with numerous herbs, shrubs and saplings. For the last 18 years, this 150 by 150ft space was a dumping ground when we decided to change it to a green breathing space. Since the last few years, all my work has been focused on reviving this park and making it known for its fruit-bearing trees. I know it’s a long road ahead, but ek baar badh gaye toh badh gaye. On every occasion, we have decided to plant a tree to constantly increase the count and green cover.”
