The state’s Animal Resources Development Department, which made the request for sealing, will provide officials to man the checkposts with the police. The police are also to seal the affected areas so no poultry products move out either.

Today, the district police intercepted a lorry smuggling 9,500 chicks out of Bolpur. The driver has been arrested. On Wednesday, the Express had reported how the police, tipped off by the ARD, had intercepted two trucks full of birds at the border of Birbhum, the epicenter of the epidemic, and Murshidabad.

Anisur Rahman, the ARD minister, said the ban will not apply to frozen chicken from organised poultry units like Arambagh’s.

Fresh deaths of backyard chicken were reported from Dinhata in Cooch Behar and Balagarh in Hooghly. So far, 34 blocks and four municipal areas in Birbhum, Murshidabad, Malda, South Dinajpur, Bankura, Burdwan, Cooch Behar, Hooghly and Nadia have been declared as affected.

The government has managed to cull 4.30 lakh chicken against the target of 20 lakh set on January 19. Rahman said he expected the target to be met in four or five days is the virus does not enter new areas. ARD officials however, said it was difficult to promise it with certainty.

“Killing backyard poultry is proving to be a very complicated job,” a senior official at the ARD department’s headquarters at Writers’ Buildings said.

“Initially, there was a lack of awareness among us,” Rahman admitted, “and villagers were also not keen on allowing us to cull their birds. But now, the operation has gathered pace.”

The government has already deployed 640 teams for culling. Another 110 teams will join them tomorrow.

The state government has constituted a corpus fund of Rs 12 crore, of which

Rs 6 crore has already been paid to poultry owners. “We plan to increase the compensation. We have asked the Centre for Rs 8 crore as assistance,” the minister said. The government, he said, was also bringing in veterinary doctors from Orissa, Assam and Tamil Nadu for supervising culling operations.

The officials of the Japanese and the US consulates met principal secretary of the animal resource development department Dilip Chakrabarty today. The dignitaries’ aim was to check with the principal secretary the extent and government measures to contain the disease.