The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay has launched its own green campus initiative (GCI), an intensive green drive to make the 550-acre campus sustainable for the occupants.

The IIT, B campus houses 8,000 students and over 400 faculty families and the drive aims to generate resources to cater to the occupants and improve the ecology by measures such as like vermiculture pits and low-flow showers and taps.

The campus has its first vermiculture pit for 24 families which will convert all the wet waste into manure. The pits use deep-burrowing indigenous worms that do not leave a bad smell and are easy to maintain.

Students at the institute are also involved in the initiative as Techfest, the annual technology festival will have an agenda to make infrastructural changes on campus to save energy and water.

Techfest has also organized a competition regarding conservation across all IIT’s. The energy bills of the institutes participating in the competition will be compared for three months and the institute with maximum decline in usage per capital will be the winner.

An earlier audit report had revealed that the institute spent Rs 10.2 crore on its power bill in 2007 and most amount of water was used in laboratories and for cleaning and washing purposes.

The students will install eco-friendly showerheads and pressure-reducing inserts in taps in the hostel. These measures could save enough water to supply water for 3000 thousand families for a week.