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Tamil Nadu
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Tiruchi
Bio-diversity registers for each village
RICH BIODIVERSITY: Vice-Chancellor of Tiruvalluvar University, Vellore, L. Kannan, releasing a souvenir in Tiruchi on Monday.
TIRUCHI: The challenge of mounting pollution and global warming could be addressed through bioremediation and India would soon be the research forerunner with its richness in microbial and biodiversity, Vice-Chancellor of Tiruvalluvar University L. Kannan said on Monday.
Speaking at the inauguration of a national symposium on ‘microbial biodiversity, bioremediation and biotechnology’ jointly organised by Departments of Microbiology and Biotechnology of Bharathidasan University and Cauvery College for Women, Mr. Kannan said that only five per cent of microbes had been identified and 95 per cent of productive microbes were yet to be exploited.
On controlling pollution, he said microbes played a key role in increasing oxygen content in atmosphere and absorbing the toxic content in the waste. Solid and liquid waste management could be made more eco-friendly and cost-effective through bioremediation, he said.
The environment was teeming with microbes and researchers must come up with techniques to make full use of the microbes that contribute to the balance in ecosystem.
India, he observed, was one of the few mega diverse nations, with laudable bio and microdiversity. It is also one among the 188 nations that signed the UN convention on biological diversity.
The country’s National Biodiversity Authority has planned to introduce biodiversity registers in each village to document the natural resources in every area.
“Such documentation would go a long way in boosting the researches in the field and promise immense job potential,” he said, addressing the students at the seminar.
Waste management
Inaugurating the seminar, Vice-Chancellor of Bharathidasan University M. Ponnavaikko said management of waste through bioremediation would cut down the cost and protect environmental richness. Industrial wastes that were drained into rivers brought down the quality of drinking water and posed a great threat to the health of people residing in areas near the waterway.
He termed biogas technology, which promised production of electricity through renewable resources, as a breakthrough in biotechnology. Biogas, generated from domestic wastes, could meet the 2 KW of electricity demands of every home per day.
Founder Director of National Facility for Marine Cyanobacteria, Bharathidasan University, G. Subramanian, observed that biofuel produced through algae could be an effective substitute to fuel from jatropha seeds.
K. Karthiresan from Centre for Advanced Studies in Marine Biology, Annamalai University, Head of the Department of Microbiology N. Thajuddin, Secretary of Cauvery College K. Regnagarjan, Principal V. Sujatha and Department Head of Microbiology of the college Sadhu Shyamala spoke.
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