House sparrow officially joins the Delhi family now

Chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday declared the house sparrow as the Delhi “state bird” with the launch of the “Rise for the Sparrows” campaign – a conservation movement to save sparrows.

Expressing concern over the dwindling population and lack of attention and recognition these birds have received, Dikshit hoped that the decision will go a long way in raising awareness and attention to the species.

“Delhi Government is also considering to incorporate the Common Bird Monitoring in the school curriculu, and make schools and other organisations sparrow and bird-friendly.

Nature Forever Society has promised to provide us all the help and resources towards this endeavour. This will help in the long term collection of data from the NCR,” said Dikshit.

Delhi being one of the greenest cities in the country has a tremendous scope for urban conservation, of which a sparrow is the mascot and a  bio-indicator, she said.

She urged people to register on www.cbmi.in to monitor sparrows and other common birds in and around their homes, offices and schools.

“Rise for the Sparrows” is a project aimed at empowering and inspiring citizens, corporates and educational institutions to actively get involved in sparrow conservation, monitoring and creating awareness with regard to the conservation of house sparrows and other common birds of India.

Mohammed Dilawar from Nature Forever Society said the organisation had been working on this for more than a year, and thanked Dikshit for making house sparrows the state bird of Delhi.

He said the project was being launched on Independence Day, and caring for the environment was a vital part of caring for the country.

“August 15th being a national holiday, everyone can certainly devote 15 minutes for the birds on our Independence Day. This should be one of the things that everyone should do after flag hoisting at their colonies and offices,” said Dilawar.