Poultry ban conditions confound even more

GANGTOK, 26 Sept: Even as the ban on entry of poultry products into the State continues without any substantial reason, the nature of this ban imposed by the Animal Husbandry Department attracts attention as being prejudiced and discriminatory. This for the simple reason that, as per the notification of the department issued way back on 22 April, 2010, the ban is for everybody except two organizations.
As per this notification, no individual, cooperative society or business enterprise is allowed to bring in poultry or poultry products, including day old chicks, into Sikkim except two organizations. The two organizations exempted from the ban are Denzong Agriculture Cooperative Society and Sikkim Hatcheries. The illogicality is obvious and the discriminatory nature being alleged clear. In fact several small traders and those affected by this ‘ban’ also call it unconstitutional.
Small businessmen question how poultry products brought in by the two agencies are immune from bird flu, the reason why the ban was imposed, while those brought in by others infected. It is not simply a matter of designated poultry farms in Siliguri from where one can purchase the eggs or chicks as others too can be directed to get the products from these places.
The crux of the matter is that there is no bird flu at all!
This leaves the two agencies with a monopoly in the trade of poultry products in the state at the cost of other small and big traders. In this context it may also be asked of the authorities as to how this ban is beneficial or in the interest of the lay people of Sikkim?
As some of the traders ask: “It is not understood to our simple mind how the bird flu will enter the state if the poultry products are imported by traders and how it will not enter the state when it is imported by public sector undertakings such as Denzong cooperatives and the Sikkim Hatcheries?”
In another interesting and perplexing aspect of the ban, even dressed chicken is banned from being imported into the state. This ban is apparently on the very ill informed belief prevailing among the authorities that dressed chicken could be an agent to bring in bird flu. Firstly the country is bird flu free. Secondly dressed chicken cannot be a carrier of the virus simply because the virus is easily inactivated by heat, as experts on the subject inform, and by the same logic one also does not get the virus from thoroughly cooked chicken meat. In fact there are absolutely no reported cases of bird flu in humans after handling dressed chicken.
It will be in the interest of Sikkim, especially the poorer sections who have decided to take up poultry as a business option, that the authorities lift this ill informed ban and stopped playing into the hands of vested interests.