Kolkata: The green movement surrounding Durga Puja is now looking beyond pandals to transform entire neighbourhoods. With the slogan ‘From Green Puja to Green Para’, the latest edition of the Green Puja Award was launched by Bengal environment and forest minister Manoj Kumar Oraon at West Bengal Pollution Control Board headquarters on Monday.
Our objective should be to extend sustainable practices beyond the festival and make neighbourhoods cleaner and greener throughout the year,” Oraon said. We want every participating club to become a neighbourhood champion of sustainability, carrying forward waste segregation, recycling and pollution control throughout the year,” said Sujata Basu of EnGIO, the initiative’s key organiser. “We want to give maximum emphasis to recycling and demonstrate how plastic waste can become a revenue-earning opportunity,” said federation president Amit Agarwal .
“Puja committees can become catalysts for environmental change. “Green Puja was never meant to remain merely an award. Indian Plastic Federation is also launching a campaign, ‘Know the Plastic Waste’, to promote segregation and recycling.