Drive to encourage conservation of oil begins

Pune: A special drive was started by The Times of India Newspaper in Education (NIE) in association with the Oil and Gas companies across the state for school children in Pune to nurture their mind and encourage conservation of petroleum products.
An essay and drawing competition was organised at the Pandit Bhimsen Joshi Kalamandir in Aundh on Friday.Aayushi Patel, Deepti Lohar, Riti Guha Thakurta and Sakshi Shinde won awards for essay writing and drawing competitions respectively.
The topic for essay competition was ‘Indhan Bachao, Jan Dhan Badhao’ (Conserve Oil, Increase Wealth) and ‘Swachh Bharat’ was for the drawing competition. The competitions were conducted in two categories including class V to VII and class VIII and IX.
Aayushi Patel, a student of DAV Public School won from the class V to VII category in drawing competition. Anushka Adagale of Acharya Shree Vijay Vallabh School and Sakshi Shinde of Vidya Niketan English Medium School emerged first and second runner-ups in the same category.
Deepti Lohar, a student of Acharya Shree Vijay Vallabh School bagged the first prize for drawing in the class VIII to IX category, followed by Annyesha Bhuniya of DAV Public School and Yogini Rajpurohit of Acharya Shree Vijay Vallabh School as the first and second runner-ups.
In the essay competition, Sakshi Shinde of Vidya Niketan English Medium School bagged the first prize in the class V to VII category. She was followed by Simrit Kaur Gill of Sardar Dastur Hormazdiar High School and Aishwarya Waghmare of Podar International School on the first and second runner-up positions.
Riti Guha Thakurta of Podar International School - CIE won the first prize in the class VIII and IX category of essay competition. Sakshi Oswal of Acharya Shree Vijay Vallabh School bagged first runner-up and Shambhavi Kashyap of Symbiosis Secondary School won the second runner-up prize.
First three winners in each category were given prizes, certificates and a trophy while 10 participants were given consolation prizes. As many as 130 schools from the city participated in the competitions and over 2,000 students competed.
Girish Bapat, state minister for food civil supplies and consumer protection, Food and Drug Administration and parliamentary affairs was the chief guest at the function. He gave away the prizes. “Awareness must be increased among school children as they are our future. Oil and gas will soon come to an end and research is being conducted across the globe on alternative sources of energy. However, it is necessary for us to smartly utilise the available resources and is important to know the methods to conserve oil and gas,” said Bapat.
Deepak Kapoor, secretary, department of food and civil supplies and consumer protection was also present on the occasion. Kapoor said, “The habit of conservation must be instilled from a young age and I am happy that this conservation fortnight is launched among students. However, women also play a very important role in the society and hence, this awareness programmes must also be taken to cooperative societies in urban cities, where there are working women and homemakers. Women always chalk out a budget for the family and it is important to make them aware about oil and gas conservation.”
C Ramakrishnan, zonal head of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Ashok Sen, regional level coordinator, Western region, Indian Oil Corporation, Shankar Sharan, LPG head, Indian Oil Corporation, K S Rao, LPG Head, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, A L Krishnan, state level coordinator, oil industry, D Roy Chowdhury, director, Petroleum Conservation Research Association and Himadri Mandal, marketing head, Gas Authority of India Limited were also present.
As part of the continuing efforts on oil conservation, the public sector oil companies including Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA) along with Gas Authority of India in association with The Times of India - NIE will be observing oil and gas conservation fortnight starting from Friday to January 31 to encourage consumers to adopt conservation measures.