India should focus on research and development in the poultry sector to avoid situations like the Navapur bird flu outbreak that has created turbulence in the business across the country, poultry industry experts feel.

In the absence of adequate indigeneous R&D backup within the country, such epidemical outbreaks will continue to inflict damage to the sector, the experts opined and urged the Union government to contribute in infrastructural development of the R&D setup.

• Bird Flu Hits India

"There is a lot of confusion about the actual nature of disease in the poultry -- Ranikhet or bird flu. This is because when there are so many varieties of birds imported, it becomes difficult to pinpoint the exact carrier of disease," P K Ghosh, former general manager (corporate planning) of a leading hatcheries firm, told PTI from Pune.

"But, if we have our own R&D facility, then the birds can be bred indigeneously. Hence, if anything goes wrong, one can trace the root cause of the disease and can put to rest all the debates," Ghosh said.

"Currently, we are importing grandparents and then breeding the parents and day-old chicks. A lot of research is going on abroad to develop high-yielding breeds. Since the government has given lot of concessions, hatcheries in India can import breeds of their liking in numerous numbers," he added.