Maharashtra takes steps to prevent bird flu

Calcutta News.Net
Monday 11th February, 2008 (IANS)

Maharashtra, which accounts for 10 percent of the country's poultry industry, has taken a number of steps to prevent the outbreak of the bird flu that has wreaked havoc in West Bengal.

The measures were put in place to avert the recurrence of the avian flu epidemic that erupted in Maharashtra in 2006 spelling near-doom for the state's poultry industry.

As a first step, the Maharashtra government has banned import of poultry products and poultry feed from any other state.

'We have sealed all borders of the state. Our Rapid Response Team (RRT) comprising 885 members are on high alert to tackle any kind of emergency,' Animal Husbandry Department Commissioner Ashish Sharma told IANS.

The ban will be in force till West Bengal is declared free of avian flu, Sharma said.

As a second step, more than a thousand random blood samples from all districts in the state were sent to the high security Animal Disease Laboratory in the Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal.

'Fortunately, all the samples have tested negative but the government machinery is in a state of red alert,' Sharma said.

Maharashtra's poultry industry is concentrated in the district of Pune, Nashik, Raigad, Ahmedanagar, Sangli and Jalgaon. There are around 40 million live poultry birds, according to data available with Sugana Farms in Pune.

India has about 490 million poultry heads of which around 60 percent are in the commercial sector.

The rest form backyard poultry, which do not adhere to quality or health and hygiene control norms, according to experts.

'Almost 95 percent of the poultry industry in Maharashtra is in the organized sector. The farmers are conscious of bio-security measures and have implemented them stringently,' Nitin Vaidya, assistant general manager of Venkateshwara Group and member of Poultry Development Council, told IANS.

In February 2006, nearly 1.5 million birds were culled following an outbreak of bird flu in the northern part of the state. The silver lining was that the epidemic was contained in and around Navapur taluka of Nandurbar district, around 350 km from Mumbai.

At that time, authorities in the biggest local town Jalgaon cordoned off all 172 villages falling within a 10 km radius, which was the nerve centre of the epidemic. These villages had a human population of half a million then.

Vaidya said after the latest reports of bird flu hitting West Bengal, Maharashtra poultry farms have become even more stringent.

'Outsiders are strictly barred from entering any poultry farm. Those who are permitted must don the prescribed protective gear, something similar to what surgeons wear before conducting operations,' he explained.

In Sugana Farms, apart from farmers, even vehicles are sprayed with disinfectants.

'The vehicles which enter the farms are sprayed with disinfectants before they are permitted in the breeding areas,' Sugana Farms General Manager K. Ravindran said.

A daily check-up of the birds has also been made mandatory at all the farms by a qualified veterinary, he added.

Even individual poultry farm owners are not taking any chances. The proprietor of Kiran Poultry at Nashik Siddharth Ranem said that he had installed protective sunshades on all his cages.

'It prevents birds like sparrows, pigeons or crows from invading the chicken farms. We also maintain highest standards of cleanliness and hygiene in the breeding areas,' Ranem said.

Echoing a similar sentiment, Siddhartha Rane, proprietor of Kiran Poultry in Nashik said: 'We have put shades on our farms, which will prevent other birds from entering. Our farms are absolutely clean and hygienic.'

Rane said each poultry farm spends around Rs.10,000 per month for a daily check-up of the hens. 'Though it adds to the cost nobody complains since it is for the overall good of the industry and can prevent disasters like 2006,' he said.

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