Chandigarh: The distribution of a large number of a 1,306-page document on future academic activities by Panjab University has upset environmentalists who say it amounts to a rape of trees.

Environmentalist professor Arun D. Ahluwalia of the department of geology, who was among those who got a copy of the voluminous agenda, has termed the exercise "mindless".

Speaking for the green community on the campuls, he feels it has been done at a terrible cost to trees.

Ahluwalia, president of the environment outreach programme on the university campus, has shot off letters to Registrar S.S. Bari, who sent the agenda document to academic council members and other top university officials including Vice Chancellor R.C. Sobti.

"Last year, while giving a talk in anthropology department, a senior lady professor wanted to know if PU had a moral issue preaching environment when millions of papers were wasted on such documents at a minimum cost of 50 paisa a page and at a terrible cost to trees," Ahluwalia pointed out.

Ahluwalia said he then appraised Sobti about the wasteful exercise.

"Sobti said he was shocked at this thoughtless wastage," Ahluwalia claimed, wondering how come the university was still following the archaic practice of wasting so much paper in this Internet age.

The professor has suggested that instead of sending voluminous agendas which most academic council members throw away as waste, the document must be e-mailed.

"Or it can be put on the university website with a password so that, if it is confidential, only the concerned people can open it," Ahluwalia said. IANS