Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued guidelines in view of the outbreak of bird flu in Maharashtra. It has appealed to the people of Mumbai to immediately contact the helpline number of its Emergency Department to report the deaths of birds in the city.
 

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray also took the stock of the situation in the state and asked the administration to provide proper information to the people to prevent rumors about this disease. AIR correspondent reports that BMC has made all the arrangements to destroy the birds found dead in its jurisdiction and asked the people to contact immediately to report the unnatural deaths of the birds in their area. The complaints received by the control room will be forwarded to the assistant engineers in the solid waste management department and the BMC personnel will destroy the birds according to proper guidelines under the guidance of the competent officer.
 

The civic body has also published the contact details of the officials in the rapid response team. Birds infected with avian influenza were found in some parts of Mumbai as well as in neighboring Thane in the last few days.
 
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has taken the stock of the situation in the state in an emergency review meeting and appealed to the people not to panic as the disease is not transmitted to humans. He assured that adequate funds will be made available for setting up the state-of-the-art Biosecurity Level 3 Laboratories for Animal Husbandry in the State for immediate diagnosis of the disease.
 
According to the Minister of the Department of Animal Husbandry Sunil Kedar, the department has sent bird flu guidelines to field officers. He said that the field officers have been asked to implement these instructions seriously as per the action plan of the Central Government.