The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Birds will be culled if the need arises: Animal Husbandry Minister

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 24, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Birds will be culled if the need arises: Animal Husbandry Minister

Staff Reporter

The Finance Department has earmarked Rs. 5 crores for the operation

Bangalore: The Department of Animal Husbandry is prepared to take up culling of infected poultry if the need arises and the Finance Department has earmarked Rs. 5 crores for that.

Stating this here on Thursday, Minister for Medical Health and Animal Husbandry V.S. Acharya said that not a single case of avian flu had been reported in the State.

As a precautionary measure, he had asked the Finance Department for funds to take up culling, immediately. Even the Centre had been sounded about the need to release funds.

Dr. Acharya said Karnataka needed Rs. 93 crores if it had to cull all the birds.

Defending the ban on import of birds from neighbouring States such as Maharashtra, where avian flu has been reported, the Minister said Karnataka was a poultry exporter and it had to take measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

He said the Government had banned the import of all types of poultry products, including eggs and dressed chicken.

Karnataka was a surplus State and exports poultry products to countries such as Japan.

Culling could be taken up only on the directions of the Government under the World Health Organisation guidelines.

The Government, he clarified, would give a compensation of Rs. 30 per bird culled, only if it issued the order and no such notification had been issued so far.

He said that the Kerala Animal Husbandry Minister K.R. Gouri had allowed the entry of lorries carrying poultry from Karnataka, provided they were certified as without virus by the Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry.

Tests

The Minister said that birds in Shimoga and Bellary were afflicted by the infectious bursal disease.

Some 400 samples of the afflicted birds had been sent to the All-India Animal Husbandry Laboratory in Bhopal for tests. Ruling out the spread of avian flu from Nandurbar in Maharashtra to the birds in the State, Dr. Acharya said that once they were infected, the birds would become weak in three days and would not survive.

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