The recent outbreak of bird flu or avian influenza inseveral states across the country had hit the poultry farming industry inPunjab with sales dropping by nearly 50 per cent due to apprehension amongconsumers.
In a press conference held here today in Jalandhar, themembers of poultry association blamed the loss suffered by the industry tovarious fake campaigns and messages being circulated on social media, creatingpanic among consumers. They said the situation is expected to worsen further asthe state government has declared Punjab as a controlled area.
“Although no cases of bird flu in chicken have beenconfirmed in Punjab as of now, people have stopped eating chicken and eggs asprecaution, due to which the demand for the poultry products have reduced byover 50% in the last four-five days”, they said.
The members said that the wholesale rate of boilers inPunjab was around Rs 90 per kg four days ago, which came down to Rs 54 onFriday. Similarly, for eggs, they said, a tray of 30 eggs, which cost Rs180,was now being sold for Rs100.
The members further said every month Punjab has aturnover of about Rs 500 crore including poultry and eggs, which has now comedown to Rs 250 crore. They said that about 1.5 lakh chickens were sold daily inthe state, however, now this demand too has reduced to half. “In Jammu andKashmir and Himachal, chickens were supplied from Punjab, but now the supplyhas almost stopped owing to bird flu scare”, they said.
Dr MP Singh, Joint Director, Regional Disease DiagnosticLaboratory (RDDL), Jalandhar, said, “There is no need to panic as of now asthere has been no case in Punjab so far. However, looking at the situation inthe neighbouring states, the department and government are taking precautionsand have decided to step up our testing daily to 1,500 or so”.