From the coming academic year, students who get admission into any of the colleges affiliated to Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences  (RGUHS) have to plant a sapling.

This a policy decision taken at the university and has been communicated to all affiliated colleges, including medical, nursing and pharmacy. The institutes have to provide one sapling to each student and direct them to plant it in the campus premises.

"The student will take care of the sapling and nurture it until he or she gets out of the college. In the end, the student will take a photograph with that plant and the university will issue a certificate to them," explained Dr M K Ramesh, in-charge Vice-Chancellor of RGUHS.

This is following the direction given by Karnataka State Council for Higher Education where it had asked all the universities and higher education institutions to follow this practice of planting a sapling by each of their students.

The credit of starting this movement goes to Siddartha University in Tumakuru, which introduced this practice two years ago.