Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar capitulated to poultry industry demands to not introduce mandatory bird flu vaccinations of poultry and also promised to upgrade laboratories, a 3-lab verification before declaration of disease, a zone-affected areas. Indian poultry industry claims that it has lost USD 1.79 billion in the last two months because of drop in sales due to the bird flu scare.
Indian state Maharashtra was the first to be affected but corrupt politicians with political interests and conniving police officials allowed the exhilaration of 90% of the birds meant to be culled through “sealed” borders and spread the disease to other districts in
different states. such as Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. Poultry industry initially claimed that there is a conspiracy by American poultry industry to wipe out the Indian industry and then invade Indian markets with their products. Then they tried to recruit actors and politicians with poultry interests to eat poultry in public and campaign that eating cooked poultry is safe. Then they started asking the Government to declare safe and unsafe zones of poultry. When all these efforts failed, they went to Pawar and cajoled, threatened, and bullied him to accepting all their demands at the cost of national health. |