CHANDIGARH: Running a poultry farm in Haryana is not going to be an easy affair any more as the state government has notified guidelines for poultry farmers, asking them to adopt modern sanitary methods to prevent contamination caused by solid, liquid and air pollution.
The new guidelines, issued by principal secretary, department of environment, Haryana, Dr Avtar Singh, on May 27, has made it mandatory for poultry farms to make provisions of vegetative screens or barriers to slow airflow and/or redirect odour plumes away from receptors.
Vegetative screening means naturally occurring or purpose planted vegetation to lessen the impact of odour, noise, etc., on the surrounding areas.
As of now, unscientific upkeep practices by poultry farms had caused pollution problems and detrimental effects on the environment, specially in Barwala-Raipurani belt of Panchkula and some parts of Yamunanagar and Ambala districts, which alone have around 200 unregulated poultry farms.
A PIL was also filed before the Punjab and Haryana high court, alleging that unregulated poultry farms have affected social life in the area as people from other regions hesitate to get their sons and daughters married to people from these rural areas, housing poultry farms.
The pollution control board was not able to take any action against erring poultry farms in the absence of rules or regulations to that effect.
The new guidelines have come in the wake of a contempt of court notice sent to the state government by the president, Shivalik Vikas Manch, Vijay Bansal of Panchkula. The contempt notice was issued after the state government failed to comply with the September 2011 orders of Punjab and Haryana high court, directing the state government to frame necessary regulations for poultry farms.
The new norms stipulate that existing hatcheries with more than one lakh birds will have to install double-chambered incinerators under biomedical waste management rules for scientific disposal of dead animals. Such farms should also obtain consent from Haryana Pollution Control Board to run the unit. Farms with more than 5,000 birds will have to register themselves with local bodies. Poultry farms in the state will have to comply with these guidelines within 90 days.
Salient features of new policy:
Farms have to be fenced with barbwire/linked mesh up to 1.5 metre
Green belt around the poultry farm needed
No open or indiscriminate burning of dead birds
No poultry sheds within 200 metres from public road, water course and 500 metres from residential areas.
Farm should be 1,000 metres away from major water reservoirs/catchment areas
