# 1629
The ban on the sale, trade, and consumption of poultry announced two days ago in West Bengal is being ignored, even in the capital city of Kolkata, according to this report from The Times of India.
Like edicts we've seen in the past in other countries battling bird flu, issuing them is one thing, enforcing them is quite another.
Bird flu ban no more than a joke
8 Feb 2008, 0256 hrs IST,
KOLKATA: Missing the egg on your breakfast plate? Step into any para in the city - even the posh Park Street or the area around the state's seat of power - and you can gorge on chicken and egg to your heart's content.
The ban on the sale of poultry products is no more than a joke.
A full 48 hours after the state announced a blanket ban on the sale of chicken and eggs all over Bengal to stop the spread of bird flu, omelettes and chicken rolls are making brisk business across the length and breadth of the city. Forget remote rural areas, the government has failed to enforce the ban in its own backyard.
Food vendors selling chicken curry and egg preparations are doing roaring business on the pavements near Writers' Buildings and in front of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation headquarters. Pizza and burger outlets, like KFC, are chock-o-block for most of the day. So are street corner roll shops.
At KFC's Park Street outlet, where hot favourites like Zinger Burger, chicken snacker and bucket chicken were notching up big sales, the authorities claimed they have neither received any order to refrain from selling cooked chicken nor has it been made clear to them if they fell under the ban.
"There is a lot of ambiguity in the order. They have not specified if selling chicken in a cooked form is prohibited. Unless we receive a direction we shall not close down," said a spokesperson.
A specific order seems unlikely because even animal resource development minister Anisur Rahaman - who announced the ban - does not have a clear answer to this. When TOI approached him on Thursday, he insisted that the ban was on "all poultry items" but refused to specify if it included cooked products.
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