KOLKATA: Even as bird flu spread within Murshidabad district in West Bengal, authorities said on Thursday that the virus had been contained and that culling operations were on track.
A few days ago, three new epicentres — Badur, Shimolia and Khandur were reported, but there have been no new reports of the spread of the virus since, said District Magistrate Perwez Ahmed Siddiqui.
On being asked to comment on media reports that villagers in some of the affected blocks were resisting culling operations, demanding more compensation, Mr. Siddiqui said, “there has been no resistance from villagers to culling teams here. Sixty culling teams are working and they are not facing opposition.”
“Certain mistakes were committed at the time of the outbreak in 2008 which have been rectified. This time we are compensating the villagers as soon as culling operations are carried out,” said State Animal Resource Development Minister Narayan Biswas.
Admitting to lapses in the payment of compensation during the 2008 outbreak, Mr. Biswas said more than Rs. 17 lakh had already been given out in compensation this time.The compensation was fixed by the Centre and as of now, raising the amount was not being considered, he added.“We had initially targeted the culling of 80,322 birds, but as more reports come in the target will have to be revised,” Mr. Biswas said. About 54,000 birds have already been culled.West Bengal was one of the States worst-affected by the outbreak of bird flu in January 2008.
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