ITIs across Maharashtra asked to make their campuses greener

Mumbai city news: A circular released on Friday directs all the ITIs to plant trees equivalent to the number of students studying in their institutes

To turn their premises into ‘green campuses’, the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET) asked all the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in the state to plant more trees on their campuses.

ITIs have been asked to plant trees on every barren patch on their campuses. (HT file)

In addition, every institute will have to maintain a tree inventory, which the DVET intends to check every two months.

“Most ITIs in the state have campuses as big as 25 to 30 acres. Instead of utilising the grounds only as playgrounds, we think they can also be used to plant more trees. Not just playgrounds, any barren patch on the campus can be used to plant trees,” said Yogesh Patil, deputy director, DVET.

“We are trying to introduce additional weightage during term work for every student, as well as performance appraisal of the staff, which is based on their contribution to this work,” he added.

A circular released on Friday directs all the ITIs to plant trees equivalent to the number of students studying in their institutes.

“Though we conduct tree plantation drives every year, it is a temporary activity. We want every institute to make this a permanent academic feature,” Patil added.

There are 417 ITIs in the state, of which 16 are in Mumbai. The circular states that every tree will have a parent staff and student, who will be responsible for its upkeep.

While the ITIs will have to implement the process from the ongoing academic year, institutes said they are more than happy to do it.

“This move will encourage students to contribute more for saving the environment and take responsibility for it. We will be happy to implement this feature at the earliest,” said the principal of an ITI at Bandra.