Traders evade culling in Malda

Statesman News Service

MALDA, March 20: Following the ‘action plan’ of animal husbandry and public health departments of the Central government, the Malda administration is not in position to conduct surveillance of a fresh outbreak of avian influenza in a large part within a radius of 10 km from the epicenter.The reason: That large area is under the control of Bangladesh government. It is found that the distance between the state poultry farm in English Bazaar town of the district and Indo-Bangladesh border is nearly 5.35 km and the rest of the areas on the eastern side belong to Bangladesh. The Malda district magistrate Mr CR Das said: “I will point out the matter to the state government in my routine report with a map of the identified areas for surveillance after culling and mopping”. “Is it possible to implement necessary action plans, banning movement of poultry and its products, in Bangladesh for me?” Mr Das asked.Owing to the loss of time since the date of confirmation of avian influenza in the state poultry farm in Malda, several traders and poultry farm owners have allegedly shifted poultry outside the 3 km radius to avoid culling.The office bearer for animal resource development of Malda zilla parishad, Mr Soumitra Roy alleged that by the time they received information several traders had already shifted thousands of chickens out of the 3 km radius to avoid culling. He blamed the administration for failing to track them in time just after confirmation of avian flu by the Central government on 19 March. Quoting a letter to the chief secretary, written by Mr Arvind Kaushal, joint secretary, animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries, ministry of agriculture (No. 50-172/2007-LDT (AQ) on 19 March 2008) Mr Roy said: “In case of a positive result for H5 strain of Avian Influenza (AI) detected by tests conducted on samples collected from the areas bordering those already afflicted with H5N1 strain of AI, culling and destruction of eggs and poultry feed may commence immediately without waiting for confirmatory tests so as to control further spread of the disease without losing time. But nothing has been done here”. He also pointed out, reading the letter of Mr Kaushal: “The administration did not follow the government’s guideline to ban movement of poultry and its products within a 10 km radius from the epicenter”. The district administrative officials started the culling operation tod-ay and imposed restriction up to a radius of 3 km initially. Though announcements were being made in the district since last evening, traders sold off their poultry secretly in the market at various places in the town this morning.“A total of 15 teams led by the ARD officials culled nearly 15,000 birds including 13,000 chicks in the Malda state poultry farm today. From tomorrow this team will start the culling operation in other affected areas,” said the deputy director of Malda ARD Mr N K Shit.