World Earth Day was celebrated in St. Thomas College, Bhilai by the P.G. Department of Botany under the ageis of Botanical Association. The theme of World Earth Day 2016 is “Trees for the Earth”. This theme will remain till 2020 when the Earth Day celebrates its 50th Anniversary. On this occasion Administrator of the college Very Rev. Father Gee Varghese Rambaan stressed that conserving natural resources like soil and water is the need of the hour. In order to enjoy the tonic of fresh air, contact with the soil, and companionship with nature afforestation has to be done. Principal, Dr M.G. Roymon said as trees are the best way to fight climate change more and more trees should be planted. The planet loses 15 billion trees per year, so the Earth Day Network plans to plant 7.8 billion trees by 2020 one for every person on the planet.The Botanical Association organised Plant of the Week where 15 plants (wild or cultivated or ornamentals) of the campus was displayed and was open to the college fraternity. The prizes were awarded to Mr. Gautam Jain MSc I sem (Student), Mr Sunny George (Non teaching) and Dr. Chanda Verma (Teaching). Dr Jyoti Bakshi, Convenor of the Botanical Association welcomed the gathering and said that Earth Day is celebrated annually to raise awareness and develop a sense of public responsibility pertaining to environmentally-sustainable practices in order to build and maintain a healthy, global ecosystem and maintain a viable planet for future generations. Miss Carol Janis Student of M.Sc II Semester Botany presented a power point on the topic “Everyday is Earth Day”. The highlight of her the presentation was the few lines of a beautiful poem which says –
Everyday is a earth day, Or atleast it should be
We should take steps everyday, To save your planet, dont you agree ?
The programme was conducted by Miss Seepiyan Dalal, Faculty of Botany Department and vote of thanks was proposed by Miss Priyanka Sahu, student of M.Sc II Semester (Botany).Principal Dr.M.G.Roymon congratulated Dr. Vinita George Thomas, Head of Deptt. of Botany for organizing the programme.The Principal of the College, congratulated the Head of Department of Botany, Dr. Vinita Thomas for the successful conduct of the programme.