Malda, Dec. 21: The Malda district administration has turned to political parties in the bird-flu affected areas of the Narhatta gram panchayat to make mop-up operations incident-free.
Malda district magistrate Sridhar Ghosh said he had instructed the subdivisional officer of Englishbazar to get in touch with local political leaders so that the culling teams did not face resistance in the final stages of the operation.
“In the six mouzas, where culling started yesterday, 1,788 chickens were killed. In the rest of the 13 mouzas, mop-up is on. We are having a problem catching the poultry (most villagers have released the chickens from their coops). There have been some sporadic incidents of resistance and the subdivisional officer is coordinating with the political parties so that they are not repeated,” the district magistrate said.
Some villagers from Narhatta, 12km from here, alleged that on Friday the animal resources development (ARD) department had run out of money for compensation and many of them went back home with their chickens. Yesterday, when the culling teams revisited Narhatta, they announced that no money would be given for the mop-up. This angered people like Samima Bibi from Babupur, who had charged at Dilip Kar, a vet leading a culling team, with a chopper.
Samima said she had waited with their poultry for an hour before the culling team on Friday evening.
“Around 8pm, one of the team members told us that no more chickens would be taken for culling as they had run out of money. Yesterday when the team returned to our village, the same man told us that no compensation would be paid,” Samima said.
Ashok Mondol, a CPM gram panchayat member of Narhatta, held the ARD department responsible for the misunderstanding. “The awareness level of the villagers (about the culling) is low and the teams should have explained what mop-up was all about. Now the situation is such that each chicken has to be hunted out. Once the villagers came to know that they will not be paid any money, they released their poultry,” Mondol said.
The district magistrate has denied the allegation that villagers have not been compensated. “We are not short of money. The BDOs were always prompt in reaching the compensation.”
The ARD minister, Anisur Rahman, said from Calcutta no other area in the state was affected by bird flu. The reports of samples sent for tests from Gajole and Ratua have turned out to be negative.
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