Environmental Development Committee

It is hereby notified that as per the resolution adopted in the Governing Body Meeting of 19th December 2021, Environmental Development Committee of the college has been reconstituted with effect from the date of notification till further notice. It includes the following members:

Chairperson – Dr. Subhabrata Gangopadhyay (ex-officio)

The Environmental Development Committee of The Bhawanipur Education Society College was formed in 2014.

• The Environmental Development Committee (EDC) was formed with the prime aim of raising awareness and enhancing a sense of responsibility among all students and staff of the institution towards Mother Nature. Over the years, the EDC has remained committed to its goal of promoting environmental consciousness and motivating all to work towards conservation and improvement of the environment and ensuring sustainable development of society at large.
• In a world of economic, social, political and ecological interdependence, the committee considers liaison between various disciplines of science, arts and commerce one of its objectives. The committee organises seminars, conferences and lectures, publishes newsletters and bulletins and distributes pamphlets about the repercussions of exploiting natural resources and polluting the environment.
• The EDC always encourages research from students and staff and strives to motivate them to find creative solutions to environmental problems.
• The committee, with an aim to inculcate environmental ethics and impart practical skills to students to protect the environment, has formed the Nature Club, comprising students from various disciplines. The Nature Club finds innovative ways to conserve nature and improve the environment.
• The EDC aims to play a key role as an advisor to the college authorities regarding maintenance of environmental quality and conservation of nature.

In the academic session 2019-2020, the EDC, like in preceding years, proposed plans that would encourage the college to promote environmental consciousness and research among students and staff and strive to motivate them to find creative solutions to environmental problems. Some of these plans were implemented. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and abrupt closure of the college from 16.03.2020, some of these plans could not be brought to action. Yet, the committee’s efforts were not disrupted completely and even during the lockdown, the EDC celebrated World Environment Day on June 5, 2020, with a special online lecture.

During the session 2019-2020, the EDC engaged in the following activities:

Collaboration with Hulladeck Recycling Private Limited

The Environmental Development Committee worked with Hulladek Recycling Private Limited, a certified e-waste recycling organisation, to hold a seminar to raise awareness on recycling e-waste among the students and staff of the college. There were also plans of Hulladek setting up bins inside the college premises for disposal of e-waste by college staff and students, which would, in time, be collected by Hulladek for recycling. However, due to the compulsory closure of college from 16.03.2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic, the plans had to be postponed. It remains topmost on the agenda of the committee, which will put this into action on re-opening of the college.

Trip to Bengal Safari by Nature Club Members

As a part of an educational trip to Dooars, organised by the science section, the faculty members of the EDC and many of the students, who are members of the Nature Club, visited the Bengal Safari on the February 21, 2020. The reserve-cum-safari is located approximately eight kilometres from Siliguri, spread over 297 hectares. The reserve is a bounded region of the naturally occurring Sal forest in the region. It houses a variety of flora and fauna.

Around 47 students and 13 teachers enjoyed the safari from within a fully covered van.

As noted by the Nature Club, the safari was divided into various fenced areas — one each for bears, tigers, leopards and herbivores. The herbivores observed by the Nature Club were the Spotted Deer, Swamp Deer and the Sambar Deer.  The carnivores seen were the Bengal Tiger and the Common Leopard. The omnivores spotted were the Himalayan Black Bear and Peafowls. It was observed that all the deer lived in the same region, some were spotted feeding among the trees and others by the stream. The deer mostly stayed in groups of two to four. The Nature Club also noted that while one leopard was out in the open (albeit in a bounded area), another was caged. The same holds true in case of the Black Bear. A single Bengal Tiger was spotted in the open. As for the Peafowl, they were found in each of the regions of the safari, presumably flying between regions.

The safari enlists other animals such as the Jungle Cat, Fishing Cat, White Peafowl, Palm Civet, Indian One Horned Rhinoceros, Indian Elephant, Barking Deer, Hog Deer, Wild Boar and reptiles such as the Ganges Soft Shelled Turtle, Indian Black Turtle, Marsh Crocodile and Long Snouted Crocodile. The Nature Club also noted the sighting of the Rose Ring Parakeet. Other birds found at the safari are Red Jungle Fowl, Pond Heron, Lesser Adjutant Stork, Sulphur Crested Medium Cockatoo, Moluccan Cockatoo, White Cockatoo, Yellow and Blue Macaw, Scarlet Macaw, African Grey Parakeet, Golden Pheasant, Silver Pheasant and Lady Amherst’s Pheasant. Two medium-sized Indian Elephants were seen in the outer region of the safari and were abused to give rides to people.

Of the above, the following are listed in Schedules I and II of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and are considered endangered: Peafowl, White Peafowl, Hill Myna, Himalayan Black Bear, Fishing Cat, Jungle Cat, Common Palm Civet, Indian Elephant, Indian One Horned Rhinoceros, Bengal Tiger, Swamp Deer, Common Leopard, Long Snouted Crocodile, Marsh Crocodile, Ganges Soft Shelled Turtle and the Indian Black Turtle.

In all, it was an enriching experience, with all present learning new details about the animals.

Commemorating World Environment Day with A Special Online Lecture

On June 5, 2020, the Environmental Development Committee organised a special online lecture on “Environment and Climate Concerns: Rethinking Education Strategies” to mark the occasion of World Environment Day. It was a privilege for the committee to have Dr Duke Ghosh, Partner, Global Change Research, Kolkata, as the speaker. He was the Fellow of The Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders’ Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) and also a former WOTRO-NOW Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Global Change Programme, Jadavpur University. He has also been a Research Fellow of the Science and Policy Research Institute (SPRU) of the University of Sussex. An Economist by training, Dr Ghosh has a rich experience of providing research and consulting services to the Government of India, various state governments and institutions like ADB, UNIDO, UNDP, DFID, SIDA, CII, PwC, EY, Oxford Policy Management and more. Dr Ghosh completed his PhD in Economics at Jadavpur University and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Fifty teachers from all departments of the college and 12 students of the Nature Club attended the talk.

Dr Ghosh talked about the various impacts of climate change. He shared a multidisciplinary approach to understand and solve various environmental issues, focussing on how individuals could develop themselves and be aware of the problems of the world we are all a part of. He also suggested what one could do to improve life on the planet and come up with strategies and solutions to combat climate concerns.

The lecture was highly informative and engrossing. It was followed by a Q&A session, with questions coming in from both students and faculty members that proved the lecture to be a great success.

National Webinar on Climate Change and Disease

The EDC organised a national webinar on “Addressing Issues of Climate Change and Vector-Borne Diseases Like Dengue”, in association with the Department of Sociology and in collaboration with IQAC on August 22, 2020.

1. To organise an online talk and interactive session with a doctor on Covid-19 related queries titled “Dear Doctor, How Do We Co-exist with the Virus?”
2. To resume plans of collaboration with Hulladek on e-waste collection.

Number of Meetings held July 2019-June 2020: Five (05)

Dates: 22.07.2019, 27.08.2019, 09.09.2019, 21.11.2019, 04.06.2020

Minutes of Meetings: Maintained