Hyderabad: The Animal Husbandry department is worried that with the bird flu outbreak in Hyderabad, people may stop consuming chicken in the city and its outskirts resulting in a loss to poultry farmers.

The bird flu outbreak might prove to be a major hurdle as Telangana aims to project its strength in the poultry sector.

Hyderabad will be organising the Poultry Knowl-edge Day on November 24 this year and following that, will be hosting a three-day industrial expo on poultry business.

As per Telangana Poultry Breeders Association president, Mr G. Ranjith Reddy, the monthly poultry output from Telangana is 4 crore kg of chicken and 90 crore eggs, contributing `10,000 crore to the state’s GDP.



He said, “The business was affected last time there was a bird flu scare, when the outbreak was in another state. But even though this time it is in our state, people need not panic as all the affected birds are being killed. And if chicken is cooked in the Indian manner, the virus gets killed as we cook at temperatures above 70ºC.”

Even though there has never been a bird flu outbreak earlier in Telangana or in united

Andhra Pradesh, panic in the city over bird flu being detected in other states had affected the poultry business.

An Animal Husbandry official said, “Last time the panic prevailed in 2006 when bird flu was detected in Maharashtra and then Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, had to turn non-vegetarian for a day and eat chicken to let the public know that there was nothing to fear.”