He was addressing the audience after inaugurating 'Earth Day' celebration organized by Anti Pollution Drive (APD) Foundation on April 22, in association with Pana Pre-University College at its green campus. Planting of a sapling to mark the inauguration of the event made it a meaningful and memorable occasion.

"Today senseless deforestation has led to environmental pollution and global warming. More and more trees need to be planted to control pollution and generate fresh air. At least now, people should rise to this challenge and work towards increasing green cover," he said.

Appreciating the recent move by the state government to ban the use of plastic carry bags, Vijaynath Shetty opined that children too can contribute to the cause by influencing their parents not to use plastic. He appreciated the environment friendly initiative taken by the APD Foundation, which is a non-governmental organization.

"Vehicle density is resulting in greater air pollution. Scientific approach is required to control pollution," he said, and urged the APD Foundation to organize more such mass based programs.

In her address, Usha Rao, the COO of Pana PU College said that it was the vision of the institution's founder Dr Prasad Hegde to provide education in the midst of nature. Production of solar power of meet the institution's needs and cultivation of all vegetables required for the college hostels within the campus itself under the student's care, are some of the unique initiatives of the institution, she said.

Physical instructor Premnath Shetty, quiz master Mahesh Nayak, SachitaNandagopal and Srinivasan Nandagopal of Centre for Integrated Learning were the resource persons for these programmes.

Sham Shetty, vice-president of Pana Education, Sneha Shetty, Suyasha Shetty, Arjun Rai, coordinator of APD Foundation were present on the occasion.