Ekamra Walks turns green educator, eco-friendly pens with seeds inside come as souvenir

Bhubaneswar: Ekamra Walks organisers have started playing the role of green crusader with the distribution of eco-friendly pens among the visitors on Sunday.

The use-and-throw pens made of waste newspapers have seeds inside so that when a user will throw them out, the pens, while decomposing will also turn into trees as the seeds would germinate.

Today after a brief break following the severe cyclonic storm Fani, the 124th Ekamra Walks Old Town circuit saw more than 40 participants, who also took the pledge to plant more trees as the cyclone has almost wiped out more than 50 percent trees from the city skyline.

Pancham P. Taank, an engineer with SMS Group, a worldleder in steel engineering came with his family and took part in the walk.

He said that after coming to the Old Town walk and the Khandagiri and Udayagiri walk he brought the family so that they know the rich heritage of the city.

“The idea of the distribution of ecofriendly pens to participants of the heritage walk is a wonderful idea and I hope we all should also care for the green heritage of the city as the Temple City was known for its green cover and trees which was partially lost after Fani,” he added.

Pancham’s wife Sameekshya and twin sons Tanay and Tanmay, both in Class IV at Vikas School near Khandagiri were also delighted to take part in the walk and were happy receiving the ecofriendly pens.

Chief Manager of Bank of Baroda Mithilesh Kumar Singh, who came with his wife Abha and daughter Lavanya were also happy to know the heritage treasure and the medicinal plant garden Ekamra Van.

“We are happy to get the ecofriendly pen and hope that all citizens of the city would contribute in reviving the lost green cover,” they said.

The family has recently shifted from steel city Jamshedpur to Bhubaneswar.

The ecofriendly pens with seed inside is developed by a city based startup LIKHAN by two students of Centurion University. They are students of the School of Vocational Education and Training of the University.

Anju Taparia Kunte, an engineer with Siemens in Mumbai and her Charterd Accountant hubby Subash Kunte were delightede to be part of the heritage walk. “My wife has travelled 35 countries and participated in almost all types of walks there. However, today’s experince was unique. In fact she was brought up here in the city,” Subash added. Anju, a blogger also wishes to put her experince in her blog.

Virat Raj, from Ottawa, Canada and currently staying in Germany also took part in today’s walk and found his experince wonderful’. Virat, originally from Jaipur in Rajasthan has dual citizenship and stays in Canada, but works in Germany for the world-wide organisation Save the Children.

He is in the city for a post-Fani rehabilitation project and will stay here till June 28th.