By IANS
Kolkata/New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday ordered a nationwide campaign to contain bird flu, which the West Bengal government said was “under control” even as culling of thousands of birds continued across the state.
“I have been directed by the prime minister to give widespread publicity to the bird flu situation,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi told reporters after a cabinet meeting in New Delhi.
“We are launching a campaign via All India Radio as many villages have no access to television,” the minister added.
Although the deadly bird flu was not on the agenda of the cabinet meet, the issue was discussed at length. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar gave a detailed account of the situation in West Bengal.
In Kolkata, West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy said: “The outbreak is under control. There is no report of the disease spreading to new areas.”
He said the culling operation, which is expected to lead to the slaughter of over 2.1 million birds, would be completed in Burdwan, Bankura and South Dinajpur districts soon.
“We need to step up our operation in Murshidabad and Birbhum districts. It will take four-five days to complete our task,” Roy said after meeting Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Animal Husbandry Minister Anisur Rahaman.
Roy allayed fears of the virus reaching Kolkata in the wake of reports of outbreak in Hooghly, only 19 km from the city. “There is no threat to Kolkata.”
All entry points to Kolkata were sealed to prevent the entry of affected birds, officials said.
The deadly bird flu has led to the slaughter of over 700,000 birds in West Bengal so far even as it spread to Dinhata in Cooch Behar district in the north and Balagarh in Hooghly district, affecting nine of the total 19 districts.
“So far 34 blocks and four municipal areas have been hit by the disease,” Rahman said. He said 750 culling teams in protective gear were involved in killing poultry birds in the affected areas.
Culling has also begun in Malda district, where the outbreak was confirmed three days back, district magistrate C.R. Das told IANS.
However, the government continued to face criticism for alleged slow pace of the culling operation.
Dasmunsi accused Bhattacharya’s Left Front government of “lethargy” in reporting bird flu.
“There was a little delay in culling the birds. The bird flu started Jan 4 in some parts of West Bengal but the central government’s attention was drawn only on Jan 11,” the minister said.
He said if New Delhi had been alerted early on, the battle to contain bird flu could have been launched earlier.
India confirmed Jan 15 the outbreak of bird flu after laboratory tests found the H5N1 strains in the dead poultry in Birbhum and South Dinajpur districts of West Bengal.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described the situation in West Bengal as “serious”.
Reeling under the impact of the virus, the state’s poultry industry said it had lost over Rs.1 billion ($25 million) in the past fortnight.
“Culling is slow and ham-handed. We are suffering because of that. The police are harassing us by intercepting our consignments and demanding bribes while the adverse campaign has affected the business,” West Bengal Poultry Welfare Association president Sheikh Nazrul Islam told IANS.
In the villages, women folk who saw better days from rearing backyard poultry are devastated.
“How will we live now? All the 20 hens and ducks I had were slaughtered. We were heavily dependent on the earning from selling eggs,” said a woman from Mangolkot in Burdwan district, about 200 km from here.
The government has sanctioned Rs.50 million to battle the flu while the central government has disbursed Rs.35 million. The government has sought Rs.80.25 million more.
Farmers were being given tokens at culling sites and asked to contact their panchayat or village block offices for compensation. The payment is Rs.40 for a country chicken, Rs.30 for a broiler and Rs.10 for a chick.
Many villagers, however, are unhappy with the compensation. The nine districts now in the grip of the epidemic are Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan, Bankura, Malda, Hooghly and Cooch Behar.
The H5N1 virus causes a type of influenza in birds that is highly contagious. It does not usually infect people unless they come in close contact with infected birds or contaminated surfaces.