IIT-KGP students plant mangroves in the Sunderbans for Cyclone Yaas damaged island
The Telegraph online (October 11, 2021)
IIT students in Sunderbans to plant mangroves
They chose a place in a remote island of Gosaba as the area was severely affected by Yaas, which hit the Bengal coast
A group of students from IIT-Kharagpur planted 10,000 saplings of mangroves at a village in Satjelia island of the Sunderbans, which had suffered damage during Cyclone Yaas this year in May.
For this venture, the students raised money through crowdfunding online.
The students, mostly research scholars of various departments of the IIT, said they chose a place in a remote island of Gosaba in the Sunderbans as the area was severely affected by Yaas, which hit the Bengal coast.
Sources said around 30 students of the IIT had formed a platform named Vision-Prabaha to focus on the environment and help people hit by natural calamities.
In the aftermath of Yaas, the group of students also helped out people in two affected islands, Ghoramari and Kumirmari of South 24-Parganas.
“During our visit to this region after Yaas, we understood that we have to work towards a permanent solution. Then we came to know about Umashankar Mondal, geography teacher and activist who has been planting mangroves since Cyclone Aila (in 2009), and we were inspired by him. We planted 10,000 saplings for now and want to ramp it up in the future,” said Biswarup Mondal, a research scholar in chemical engineering of IIT-Kharagpur.
Biswarup, accompanied by three other research scholars Saptarshi Kumar Lahiri of civil engineering, Bijan Kumar Das of the Centre for Ocean, River, Atmosphere and Land (CORAL) sciences and Atanuka Paul of chemistry went to the Sunderbans on Friday for the task with the help of local people, mainly women, in and around Parashmani village under Lahiripur gram panchayat of Gosaba. This region falls under Satjelia island. (Read More)