Prakriti bus-exhibition starts journey to raise awareness
The ‘Prakriti’ bus showcasing India’s vast biodiversity was inaugurated by minister of state for professional education and skill development Abhishek Mishra on Saturday.
The mobile bus-cum-exhibition, which aims to spread awareness about biodiversity conservation among students, teachers and community members in the towns and villages of the state, will travel through Lucknow, Kannauj, Unnao, Kanpur, Hardoi, Sitapur, Barabanki and Rae Bareli.
Highlighting the lack of awareness about ecology and species loss even in this day and age, special secretary, forests Pratibha Singh said, “Raising awareness about biodiversity, extinction of species and the need for conservation is absolutely necessary, if significant results in limiting the impact are to be achieved.”
The best way to achieve this would be to make biodiversity awareness a compulsory topic within the mainstream educational system and to intensify awareness at the government, corporate and individual level, she said. It was with this objective that the biodiversity board, with help from Lucknow University and the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) came up with the idea of the mobile exhibition.
Several senior officials, including agriculture production commissioner and principal secretary forests and environment VN Garg, secretary forests Pawan Kumar, principal chief conservator of forests JS Asthana and principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) Rupak De, were present during the inauguration.
A painting competition on the theme, ‘Biodiversity-our treasures’, was also held in the morning, in which 250 students from 13 schools participated. Mansi Dubey of Riverside Academy, Gomti Nagar won the first prize, Amisha Naag of TD Girls Inter College, Indira Nagar won the second prize and Payal Kesharwani of TD Girls Inter College stood third. Ten consolation prizes were also given to Mainak Roy, Pooja Kanaujia, Shivani, Deepanshi Verma, Devangi Sharma, Evan Fatima, Aditi Prakash, Tarun Pandey, Priyanka Verma and Shreya Choudhary.