Culling in progress at the farm. (Surajit Roy)

Malda, March 20: Almost 15,000 birds in the state-owned farm here were culled today by employees of the Bengal animal resource development (ARD) department.

Samples from the farm had tested positive for the H5N1 virus in the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal.

From tomorrow, culling will be extended to an area within a 3km radius of the farm, where 872 of 3,000 birds have died in the past three days. There were also 13,000 chicks in the farm.

According to Nikhil Sit, the ARD deputy director in Malda, 15 groups of men were engaged in culling birds in the farm. “All the birds were culled and buried in the farm itself,” he said.

There are over 45,000 chickens in the Englisbbazar Municipality, part of Old Malda Municipality and Sahapur and Jadupur gram panchayat areas. Sit said 40 groups of men would be engaged for killing and burying them.

The district administration and the municipality have started awareness campaigns urging people to avoid consuming ducks and chickens. District magistrate Chittaranjan Das has requested residents to cooperate with the administration to cull birds. He also said poultry owners would be adequately compensated. Das said he had 20 chickens in the poultry at his bungalow and they would be culled tomorrow.

The fresh drive against flu-affected birds has escalated the price of mutton. In January, the price of mutton had jumped to Rs 200 a kg from Rs 180. Today it varied between Rs 275 and Rs 300.

“We plan to go to a haat (village market) and buy a goat along with some of our neighbours. It is very costly in the meat shops in town. But we are not even sure if the price would be less in the haats,” said Lipesh Lala, a resident of Durgabari.