Berhampur: Sparrows of the city are all set to get "man-made houses" for them on trees, on balconies of households and in offices. The Berhampur Development Authority (BDA) is all set to go ahead with these proposals for the conservation of house sparrows.

BDA chairman Subash Maharana announced this in a meeting on World Sparrow Day that was jointly organised by the Berhampur forest division and the Anchalik Vikas Parishad of Gunthabandha on Tuesday.

"We had planted more than 10 thousand saplings in Berhampur in recent years and many have grown up now. I have promised to provide at least one man-made house for sparrow very soon. I will request every citizen of Berhampur and officers here to tie up one such house on the veranda of each of their homes and offices to conserve the sparrow," said Maharana, who is popularly known as "tree-man".

District education officer Sanatan Panda said: "We are planning to introduce discussion on various topics on all the six working days during 'prayer class' in the schools in Ganjam district. We will introduce discussions on environment and health topic every Thursday. On this day, we will teach the students about house sparrows. It will encourage the young minds and help in conservation of sparrows," Sanatan Panda said.

Environmentalist Sudhir Rout described the initiative as a revolutionary beginning.

Divisional forest officer Asish Kumar Behera, who presided over the meeting, said: "We have treated conservation of the house sparrows as a movement from this year." President of Anchalik Vikas Parishad Sagar Kumar Patra said that they had initiated steps for conservation of house sparrows five years ago.