Orissa says no to culling in border districts

Bhubaneswar, Feb 4 (UNI) The Orissa government today reiterated its decision not to abide by the Centre's directive to cull chicken within five kms radius of the districts bordering West Bengal to prevent spread of bird flu.

State Animal Husbandry Director Bishnupada Sethi told newspersons here that there was no justification for such an operation.

He, however, said a statewide survey of the birds was on and if the survey team detected any case of bird flu then the state might consider the culling operation.

The Director also said that the state did not depend upon West Bengal for poultry and poultry products as most of them were imported by Andhra Pradesh However, the state government, Mr Sethi said had already banned the import of chickens from Bengal and imposed prohibitory orders u/s 144 of the Cr Pc to prevent the smuggling.

In addition to that a number of precautionary measures had already been taken, including the vaccination of the birds against the Ranikhet disease to improve the immunity of the chickens.

He claimed that so far 2.26 birds had already been immunized in the state.

Rapid Action Squads had been deployed in the border districts to keep a strict vigil and many truck loads of poultry and poultry products were seized and destroyed during the last few weeks.

So far, the director said, there was no reports of outbreak of the bird flu in the state.

Meanwhile, blood samples of five species of bird prone to bird flu sent to High Security Laboratory at Bhopal.

A report from Balasore said one truck carrying around one thousand chicks was seized at Amblitha check post yesterday while proceeding towards Chandaneswar. The chicks were later buried by the officials.

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