Coimbatore: Four higher education institutions from the city received the Swachh Campus awards from Union minister of human resource development Prakash Javadekar at a function held in New Delhi on Monday.
While Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Ettimadai was ranked first in the technical university (residential) category among 10 institutions, Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology was in the second place in the technical colleges (residential) category among six institutions. In the residential category of arts and science colleges, PSG College of Arts and Science was ranked second and Sri Krishna College of Arts and Science was ranked fourth among five institutions.
Representatives of the institutions said they had implemented several cleanliness and green initiatives on their campuses including composting pits, sewage treatment plants, green cover and renewable energy sources.
Sri Krishna Institutions has made its campuses green and paperless, chief executive officer K Sundararaman said. “We have a sewage water treatment plant with a capacity of 4lakh litres. The campus also has a vermicompost unit to process food and other waste,” he said. “Students send in their assignments online. Except for exams, we don’t use paper. The campus also has inclusive infrastructural facilities for the differently-abled.”
PSG College of Arts and Science, meanwhile, has brought in innovations in its kitchen by automating its functions and setting up a biogas plant, principal D Brindha said. “In addition, the college has 75% green cover. We segregates waste before disposal. We have also adopted seven villages near Coimbatore and has been ensuring cleanliness there,” she told TOI.
Both the colleges use alternative energy resources. While Krishna Institutions has a solar-powered water heating facility, PSG uses power generated from wind and solar sources. “The college used to incur Rs 10lakh in electricity bill. But now it has reduced by almost 10 times,” Brindha said.
The University Grants Commission had in August called higher education institutions across the country to apply for the Swachh rankings. More than 6,000 institutions applied, of which 205 were shortlisted. The colleges were inspected and were evaluated based on the cleanliness of toilets, hostels, cooking area, waste management, rain water harvesting and also on the villages they have adopted.
