By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 7 Oct: UPES achieved yet another milestone by inducting the ‘Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) Student Chapter’ to its list of official student chapters. Gurmit Singh Arora, Vice Chairman, Indian Green Building Council, was ‘Chief Guest’ at the launch of the chapter under the aegis of the ‘Department of Health, Safety & Environment and Civil Engineering’, School of Engineering, UPES. The event, held virtually due to the prevailing pandemic conditions, had Sumit Doseja, Member, CII Uttarakhand State Council, Jit Kumar Gupta, Chairman, IGBC Chandigarh Chapter, and Rekha Mavulati, Counsellor, CII Indian Green Building Council, as its esteemed guests.
The objective of launching the student chapter is to spread awareness on Green Buildings amongst the student community and ignite the idea of green in young minds.
Welcoming the dignitaries, faculty & students, Dr Harshingar Patel, Associate Professor, HSE & CE Department, stated that the chapter would work towards forwarding the IGBC vision at the regional levels by reaching out to a wider section of stakeholders and involving local agencies and Institutions in the Green building movement. The chapter would apprise the UPES students of the latest trends in research, materials, products and industry best practices for sustainable engineering. Dr Nihal Anwar Siddiqui, Programme Director, HSE & Civil Engineering Department, said the chapter would provide students with opportunities to involve with the best industry practices in the green building and sustainable engineering domain by means of internships, minor/major projects, seminars, conferences and panel discussions.
The ‘Chief Guest’, who is also the Managing Director of M/s Rajco Metal Industries Pvt Ltd, expressed his delight at the launch of the IGBC Student Chapter at the university. “We need to treat Mother Earth with due respect and conserve it for our future generations. The urban built environment is encroaching on the natural built environment and green building are the need of the hour for ensuring minimal energy and water consumption and disposal of sewage,” Gurmit declared.
CEO of ‘Shree Amba Industries’, Sumit Doseja’s talk was based on survival of the planet and issues of sewage contamination, garbage disposal, natural calamities etc. Updating the participants on the various events hosted for the students by IGBC, Jit Kumar Gupta spoke about the benefits to the UPES students in terms of knowledge, exposure and industry interaction through the IGBC Student Chapter. Sharing the technicalities of Green Buildings with the students, Rekha Mavulati spoke about the importance of sustainability factor being adopted by the industry and academia increasingly over the past few decades and informed the participants about the awareness programs, training, research and publications conducted by IGBC.
Expressing his happiness, Vice Chancellor, UPES, Dr Sunil Rai congratulated the students and faculty of HSE & CE Department. Applauding Industry Fellow Mukesh Kumar Dubey’s efforts to spearhead the initiative, Session Coordinator Anand Kumar Singh shared the university’s contribution in sustainability engineering through launching of a specialisation in Green Buildings for its Civil Engineering students. The Vote of Thanks was proposed by Mukesh Kumar Dubey. Dr Kamal Bansal, Dean- SOE, Dr Sushabhan Chowdhury, HOD, Electrical Engineering, and Dr SM Tauseef, HOD, HSE & CE Department, provided support for the event.
