Chennai’s green cover faced the full force of Cyclone Vardah last week, as its winds gusting up to 140kmph blew away more 17,000 trees in the city. College campuses across Chennai bore the brunt of the cyclone, with hundreds of trees uprooted or damaged.
At the Madras Institute of Technology, its alumni together with the student team “Athenaeum” have taken up the responsibility of making the campus green again. Starting a campaign to raise funds on crowdsourcing website, Ketto, the MIT alumni, write, “Tropical cyclone Vardah has hit Chennai hard and has uprooted almost all the trees of MIT causing heavy loss of property and damage. Several of our students and staff have been working day and night to help clear the wreckage. It will take several years to restore what has been lost but the sooner we start; the sooner we get there.”
Speaking to The News Minute, an alumnus said, "We started the campaign four days ago. We came to know that MIT campus was in a very bad condition after Cyclone Vardah. The college comes under the government so it does not need funding from us but we wanted to raise the funds after seeing the condition of our college."
More than 30 alumni came together to “restore MIT to its original glory”. After getting permission from the university dean, the team went ahead with the campaign.
The funds, they say, will go into clearing foliage, tree plantation, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. In addition, they also hope to make proposals to restore trees that were damaged in the cyclone. "We are contacting non-government organizations also on how to re-treat the trees, plant new saplings and repair the property damaged," the alumnus said.
They hope to raise Rs 5 lakhs for the campaign. "The campaign will go on till January 15, 2017 and then we will finalize a proposal and start work from January," he said.
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