A culling team member tries to get hold of a hen in a Budge Budge village. (Pradip Sanyal)

Jan. 28: The state government has sought central assistance to provide alternative animal husbandry schemes to bird flu-hit families across Bengal.

The chief minister wrote to Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar today, requesting him for Rs 50 crore at the earliest, even as the state banned inter-district movement of chickens and ducks.

In his two-page letter, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said the families which have lost their poultry could be assisted with funds to rear sheep, goats and pigs.

Around five lakh families are believed to have been hit by bird flu and the state has promised an interim relief of Rs 500 for each of them.

“Of the Rs 100 crore (requ-ired for the alternative live- lihood scheme), please bear 50 per cent of the cost…. It is necessary to…compensate... the affected families,” the letter said.

According to a preliminary estimate made by the government, the losses could amount to Rs 150 crore.The chief minister said: “Over 25 lakh poultry chickens in 13 districts were affected by the avian influenza and 85 per cent of them have already been culled.”

He urged the Centre for poultry feed at subsidised rates for backyard farming — as was provided after the outbreak in Maharashtra — and easy bank loans for the affected families. Waiver of loans for those living below poverty line and self-help groups was also among the demands.

Calcutta police today stepped up vigil on all entry points so that no poultry could enter the city from the districts.

Concerned about the large number of people who might have been exposed to the bird flu virus in Bengal, the Union health ministry has asked teams to intensify the search for people with flu symptoms.

Health staff who adminis-ter polio vaccines have been asked to make house-to-house calls and examine people in over 2,100 villages across Bengal, a health official said. The teams will also visit districts in Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, and Orissa adjoining Bengal.

Bhattacharjee demanded that the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Belgachhia be upgraded on the lines of the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal and the National Institute of Virology in Pune.

Although the bird flu virus does not easily infect humans, scientists are concerned that the greater the people are exposed, the higher the chance of a person getting infected.

Among over a million people surveyed in Bengal, about 2,100 have been found with fever or upper respiratory infec-tion, but no suspected human case of avian influenza has been detected.

Culling started in Budge Budge, South 24-Parganas, this morning, but villagers resisted the operation at Chakbeuncha village in Debra block of West Midnapore.

All 185 culling team members in Birbhum’s Rampurhat block I, about 275km from Calcutta, returned home today apparently because they were fatigued after a week’s work.

Block development officer Kajal Roy said they did not even identify the houses that were yet to hand over their chickens for culling.