If birds are facing a housing problem in the face of increasing denudation of greenery in urban areas, it is time to lend them a helping hand.
On the occasion of the 102nd birth anniversary of former chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, a foundation named after him marked the day by placing artificial bird houses in trees in and around Salt Lake BA Block.
Artificial bird houses of various sizes made of wood were also given out. “One of the requests we get very frequently from residents is to trim the roadside trees as their dry leaves were falling inside their premises and their boundaries were getting violated. Then every six-seven months now, we have a cyclone where too we lose trees or branches,” said local councillor Rajesh Chirimar, who is also the secretary of the foundation.
Due to this, he added, not only were we losing the number of trees but we are also losing many birds as we lose their nests or nesting spots. “With a plan to attract more birds we have built 25 wooden bird houses of various sizes. We will place them on various trees. We see many organisations arranging plantation drive, I would also like to request them to plant fruit trees, as along with benefiting the society it would also bring many birds, said Chirimar.
Medicine bank
Other than organising free medical and eye check-up camps, the foundation also launched a spare medicine collection drive at BA Block community hall.
“We have plans to place 56 specially designed boxes that will be placed in various spots across our ward so that people can easily spot them and put their unused medicines in those boxes,” he said.
The foundation has also engaged a full-time doctor and a pharmacist, who after receiving the collected medicines will check their condition and their expiry dates.
“On Sundays, we plan to set up a clinic in every block and through them we will try to prudently use these medicines. That does not mean our clinics will be limited only to these who collected the medicines. We would like to use these medicines also while treating the poor and the vulnerable sections of our society,” said Chirimar.
A government health centre runs in the ward which is already serving many people every day . “We have a full-fledged outpatient department there. We plan to use these medicines through the health centre,” said Chirimar. These boxes were handed over to representatives of BA , CA, CB, DA and DB Block, Shyamali Abasan and Vidyasagar Abasan.
Tapash Chatterjee, MLA, Rajarhat Newtown, Sujit Bose, minister of state fire and emergency services, along with family members of Siddhartha Shankar Roy were also present on the occasion.
“This is a foundation in my grandfather’s name and I am happy to see that they are doing such wonderful work. With time people forget his name but with the work Rajesh Chirimar is doing, he is keeping my grandfather’s name alive,” said Ayan Ray, grandson of the late chief minister of West Bengal.