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USD 5 Trillion goal of PM Modi Government takes-off from Campus

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Wednesday, 07 August 2019

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Exciting and challenging journey towards PM Modi's target of 'USD 5 trillion economy of India within 5 years' has already begun in India's college and university campuses.

A national competition of 'Clean and Smart Campus' for the higher education institutes launched by All India Council of Higher Technical Institutes (AICTE) of Ministry of Human Resource Development in partnership with TERRE Policy Centre has proved to be that starting line for this 5 years journey.

Competition was launched on 13th June and submission was completed on 19th July. The eminent jury after due evaluation and onsite verification would declare the awards on 2nd October 2019, which is Mahatma Gandhi's 150th Anniversary.

TERRE Policy Centre on 5th June 2017 - World Environment Day launched the digital dashboard of Smart Campus Cloud Network (SCCN) to mainstream the amalgamation of digital technology and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to further transform the way the education is delivered. SCCN is the network of colleges and universities that share the information on work done in the campus on resource efficiency, SDGs and climate change through a process of learning-by-doing and achieving-by-sharing. The Clean and Smart Campus award is therefore, a tool to incentivise and accelerate such process.

"SCCN mould the minds of future policy makers to build the sustainable and shared future. India's race towards inclusive development of all will be achieved through incubating the innovative ideas and start-ups. Nothing could be more important than imparting such knowledge and hands-on experience using the modern technologies in India's march towards USD 5 trillion economy", said Rajendra Shende, Chairman TERRE Policy Centre and Former Director at UNEP.

"Linking smart initiative with Swachh Bharat Mission of India will promote deployment of not only modern technologies like IOT, robotics, cloud networking and artificial intelligence in campus, but will provide human dimension to the smart campus by making it clean and healthy place." he added.

728 campuses out of more than 10,000 education institutes have submitted their applications giving their campus data on how they have designed, monitored , managed and improved the data by optimizing the use of energy, water, waste management, transport, air pollution, awareness and education courses within the campus. They were also required to provide data on the use of digital technology for its contribution to SDGs on real time basis.

"The focus of this award is to establish a positive competition among institutes and to provide them a platform of learning and coming in par with the latest environmental and technological trends", said Prof Anil Sahasrabuddhe, Chairman of AICTE.

There has been overwhelming response from 31 states and union territories- including Jammu and Kashmir, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Jharkhand and Sikkim.

"Promoting the positive competition and the constructive dialogue on UN Sustainable Development Goals and also facilitate better networking amongst other higher educational institutes - both regionally & globally is the core objective of the Competition. Such awards along with the efforts of SCCN enable the desired transformation of students to 'Future ready-smart citizens' for the Smart Cities and an even Smarter India.", added Dr. Anil Sahasrabuddhe, Chairman AICTE added.

The award is categorized in three sub-categories as AICTE approved Polytechnics, AICTE approved colleges (including standalone PGDM institutes) and Universities/ Deemed to be Universities running technical courses and approved by AICTE.

This article also appeared in South Asia Monitor. Follow the link below:

https://southasiamonitor.org/news/a-national-competition-for-clean-and-smart-campus-gets-728-responses-across-india/softp/30178