Jan. 15: Around four lakh birds will be culled in Bengal’s Birbhum and South Dinajpur districts from tomorrow.

Union animal husbandry department joint commissioner A.B. Negi will supervise the operation in Birbhum and assistant commissioner S.K. Dutta in Balurghat.

There will be 100 per cent culling in Birbhum’s Rampurhat I and II blocks — within 20km of worst-hit Margram — where 28,400 chickens have died over the past 10 days.

Bengal animal resources director Dilip Das said birds would be culled within a 3km radius of Nalhati I and II and Mayureswar I blocks and the Nalhati municipal area. “Birds in the subsequent 5km radius will be under the scanner.”

Reports from the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal and the National Institute of Virology, Pune, confirmed bird flu today.

State animal resources minister Anisur Rahman said Rs 1 crore had been sent to the Birbhum district magistrate to compensate people whose chickens and ducks would be culled. For Balurghat, Rs 25 lakh has been sanctioned.

The state has sealed the Bangladesh border and asked districts neighbouring Birbhum and South Dinajpur to take precaution and increase vigil to prevent the spread of the disease.

Reports late this evening said 7,000 country chickens belonging to small farmers have died in Murshidabad over the past two weeks. The deaths took place at Pasamkandi village, 3km from Margram.

Dead-chicken samples ha-ve been sent to Bhopal.

The animal resources director said no one would be allowed to rear poultry in the affected areas for three months after the culling. The culling team members will be given Tamiflu tablets as a precaution.

Poultry owners said the news of bird flu had not had any impact on sales so far. “People have realised that eating chicken does not lead to bird flu,” said Tapas Kumar Bandopadhyay, the president of a poultry owners’ body.