The Hindu : National : Uncertain future looms large over Navapur

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 22, 2006

National

National

Uncertain future looms large over Navapur

Meena Menon

The only industry in the taluk has suffered a major setback

— Photo: AP

WORRIED: A poultry farm owner looks at the hens at his Kalil poultry farm at Navapur on Tuesday.

NAVAPUR (Maharashtra): If defiant poultry farmers wanted to have a chicken party on Monday night, it was not without reason. They say their birds are in good health and fit for consumption. Many watched in sorrow as "their perfectly healthy" birds were slaughtered by government teams on Monday.

Though the chicken party was cancelled, it will be a while before Navapur recovers from the outbreak of avian influenza. With the Government confirming the outbreak in this taluk, the only industry there has received a major setback. The taluk is predominantly Adivasi and the Government offered concessions for setting industries here. But the bird flu scare has taken the poultry industry back by at least 10 years, said a dejected farmer.

According to Arifbhai Palavala of the Navapur Poultry Association, which has been contesting the bird flu theory, farmers were given a 35 per cent subsidy for setting up farms. Electricity was charged at Re.1 a unit and there was no restriction on the number of units. There was also a five per cent income tax rebate.

The industry provided jobs to over 5,000 people living on the outskirts of Navapur but today many are facing unemployment. The economy of this town and surrounding areas depends largely on poultry farming. Apart from 52 registered units here, there are a large number of unregistered farms too.

At Khakhar Phali, three km from here, over 50 persons were working till recently on poultry farms. Suman, who has been working for a year on the Don Poultry farm, said: "The only work for the last two weeks was burying hens. They started dying nearly a month ago." On Tuesday her employer asked her and seven others not to come to work for at least a week.

Suman, Saku Rathod and others were handling the dead birds without wearing gloves or masks.

Khakhar Phali has a population of 550 and most people are illiterate here. Since the birds started dying a month ago, there has been no work except burying the carcass or cleaning cages.

Gag order

Workers are scared of speaking up as their employers have asked them not to interact with outsiders. A manager of a farm from this village refused to say where he was working. He said the birds there had started dying 15 days ago. The number of workers on the farm had come to down to 10-12 from 45. Many ran away fearing infection.

Teenagers such as Bhanu Soma and Sukma Thakur, who have been earning Rs. 32 a day, will have no work on poultry farms from Wednesday. They said the hens were buried alive. The villagers said they faced an uncertain future. As Navapur is close to the Gujarat border, many people go there for seasonal work.

While the Government is sending teams of health workers to the villages around Navapur, these people do not remember anyone visiting them. Nor have they heard of bird flu or its symptoms. Many of the villages near Khakhar Phali have a lot of workers on poultry farms.

The Navapur Poultry Association has urged the Government to take fresh blood samples from the poultry and have them tested again.

Mr. Palavala claimed that the Western Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Pune said on February 16 that the bird deaths in Navapur were caused by Ranikhet disease. How could the scene change so soon, he asked.

Minister's farms untouched

Farms about 13 km away from Navapur and along the road to Gujarat are all functioning. Maharashtra Transport Minister Surupsingh Naik owns a few and other farmers upset at the Government allegedly not touching his farms. It is business as usual there, according to reports.

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