January 23, 2008 ☼ avian flu ☼ crisis ☼ federalism ☼ public health ☼ Public Policy ☼ Security ☼ West Bengal
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Avian flu first hit India in February 2006, when chickens in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar district tested positive for the H5N1 virus. India’s official response was promising: it activated its contingency plan, quarantined the affected districts, improved surveillance and began culling birds (almost 900,000 birds were culled). The outbreak was contained quickly. Poultry farmers were compensated between Rs 40 and Rs 10, depending on the size of the bird.
This week’s outbreak in West Bengal shows just how different Indian states can be. Failure to contain the outbreak quickly enough now threatens wider damage. The state government has been accused of being slow to act, and for not realising ‘gravity of the situation’. It has neither been able to cordon off the affected districts, not been able to implement culling fast enough. Well-connected cartels have been sneaking dead birds out, and farmers unwilling to allow birds to be culled unless paid in cash upfront. This, despite the compensation being closer to Rs 70 (much more than what was paid in Maharashtra in Feb 2006). Clearly, the villagers don’t trust the government to pay up.
This suggests that immediate cash compensation to affected farmers is the need of the hour even if the cash must make it through the hands of the administrative chain. Sealing off affected areas, and clamping down on ‘smuggling’ is also in order.
Beyond the immediate crisis, the key lessons—so far—from this is that educating poultry farmers must be taken more seriously; and the education initiative must be carried out in a sustained manner. Second, the Indian government’s contingency plan must take into account the problems of paying upfront cash compensation. Finally, sealing off of affected areas may be too serious an issue to be left to the state government alone. A clear escalation process—laying out the conditions for deployment of central paramilitary forces—is necessary.
In the next few days we will know how many humans have been affected by the flu virus. Coping with that will be another challenge for the West Bengal government.
From the archives: Chicken contingency (Feb 2006); a review of India’s state of preparedness (Nov 2005)
Update: Ravik Bhattacharya’s report in the Indian Express on how the state authorities didn’t act in time.
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