Today Shri Narendrabhai Modi, Honourable Prime-Minister of India, has inaugurated the Swachcha Bharat Abhiyan. The members of the GTU family, spread out over different Colleges/ Institutes/ Polytechnics and in all the offices of GTU have worked in their own respective institutions and have taken an oath of actively working for a Clean India.

AICTE has said that ‘Institutions and colleges being thought leaders of society could play a leadership role in chalking out long term sustainable action plans in collaboration with other stakeholders for cleanliness.’

Toilets designed in South Korea are used all over the world, including the countries in our neighbourhood in Arabia. They are working on the idea of powering homes by using the mechanical energy of flowing water in flushing toilets. Karl Linden, Professor at the University of Colorado, has developed a revolutionary waterless toilet powered by the sun. Linden's team is one of 16 around the world funded by the Gates "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge" since 2011. Mahindra and Mahindra, through their SparkTheRise project and many other agencies are prepared to help research and development work in these areas.

GTU made a small beginning by organizing a Preparatory Meeting and a Half-day Seminar on Saturday, 10th August 2013 on Solid Waste Management systems. Krupali Raval and Priyanka Deliwala, two young women-students at LJ Institute of Engineering & Technology developed an innovative system of solid waste management as their Final Year project. They have studied the properties of the solid waste in Ahmedabad and the dumping site of Pirana. I visited the Institute on 13th May 2014 to inaugurate the use of the system for the entire LJ campus.

Let every College work on the technologies, which may be the most appropriate for the villages, talukas and cities, near their College. Let every College study the financial viability of various technologies for their area. Let us help make our areas clean by an optimum use of available technologies or by developing new technologies, wherever required. Through this work, we may be able to strengthen our existing industries or help develop new ones.

Dr. Akshai Aggarwal
(2nd Oct 2014)