Orissa’s pigeons may have to call it a day

BHUBANESWAR, JUNE 16: "Arrangements for public meetings should not be such as to separate the speaker too much from the audience.&quo...

BHUBANESWAR, JUNE 16: "Arrangements for public meetings should not be such as to separate the speaker too much from the audience." When Pandit Nehru gave this message after inaugurating the Hirakud Dam on April 13, 1948, it was the fluttering wings of a pigeon which carried the message from Sambalpur to Cuttack, not the wireless.

This Homer pigeon that the Orissa police sent, carried the message in less than five hours, much before Nehru reached Cuttack and addressed a public meeting. It was one of the proud moments of the State police’s pigeon service. Yet, five decades later, most of the pigeons will have to retire when the Government abolishes the service.

The onslaught of modern communication technology like the wireless and Very High Frequency (VHF) gadgets has put paid to this trusted service. The Government is thinking of maintaining it only as a token service.

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Orissa was the first state to introduce pigeon service for transmission of police messages in 1946, when communication technology was still at a rudimentary stage. It is the only state in the country to continue the service.

However, many officials feel the service can co-exist along with other means of communication. "The greatest advantage with pigeon service is secrecy of messages. It is very useful in transmission of intelligence from one district to another," says IGP (Technical) Uma Shankar Mishra.

The officials also point out that these birds are of immeasurable value during natural calamities and emergencies. During the recent cyclone, these birds flew to far-flung areas in the state with messages that saved several lives. It is due to this that the police insist on a skeleton service of pigeons that should be maintained at strategic locations in the State

Headed by an inspector, the pigeon service wing of the state police is manned by three sub-inspectors, an assistant sub-inspector and 35 constables, under the overall supervision of the IG (Technical) and SP (Signals) at the police headquarters.

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Currently, there are 648 pigeons of Belgium Homer species at 27 lofts at Cuttack, Puri, Balasore, Rairangpur, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Kalahandi, Padmapur, Sonepur, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Paralakhemundi, Bolangir, Sundergarh, Bonai, Rayagada and R Udaygiri. With an annual budget of Rs 1.50 lakh, pigeons are given a four to six-week training to carry messages from a minimum distance of 30 km to a maximum of 300 km.

Message capsules are tied to pigeons’ legs and a group of them carry messages to a specific district or sub-division. Two pigeons are sent with the same message at one point of time to ensure that it reaches the destination. "Pigeons have never failed the police so far," Mishra adds.

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