Orissa Police pigeons face retrenchment

August 22, 2001

The days of Orissa Police's Pigeon Wing, the only service of its kind in the country, may be numbered.

The overwhelming opinion in the top echelons of the administration that it is anachronistic to have the pigeon mail in the age of E-Mail and Internet, which constitutes an unnecessary drain on the exchequer, is likely to sound the death knell of the service which, though, has survived many such scares in the past.

Set up in 1946 with pigeons of Belgian breed called Homers, the Pigeon Wing of the State Police has gone through many ups and downs in its 54-year long history. Though highly ornamental now, on occasions, the flock of over 600 pigeons with the police still serve some useful purpose during crises.

It was the utility of the service during calamities like floods and cyclones that made the police cling to it despite protests from the administration for a long time. Headquartered in Cuttack, the Pigeon Wing has several golden moments in the past to cherish, including the one when one of its pigeons flew from Cuttack to Sambalpur, to announce in advance, the arrival of the then Prime Minister, Mr Jawahar Lal Nehru to inaugurate the Hirakud dam in 1948.

The birds played a stellar role during the floods of 1982 when the subdivisional town of Banki was inundated and totally cut off from the district headquarters of Cuttack. With wireless links snapped between the two places, pigeons were the only means of communication between the beleaguered cities.

Even during the last supercyclone, the birds are said to have carried some important messages across the devastated zone. But their role is progressively shrinking in view of information technology boom.

The Pigeon Wing has three divisions based at Cuttack, Chhatrapur and Sambalpur, each headed by a Sub Inspector. The birds kept in lofts at these places can fly non-stop upto about 800 km at a stretch at speeds ranging from 80 to 90 km per hour. The speed depends a lot on wind conditions and congeniality of the route.

The impediments that the birds encounter during their journey could be of various kinds including predatory species like hawks or a food-laden trap laid by some wily bird trapper. Normally, though, the highly trained birds do not stop on the way for food or water which they prefer to take only after accomplishing the mission.

Depending on the kind of services they render the birds are categorised into Static, Boomerang and Mobile categories, each defined by its own special characteristics.

The Static is a one-way service of special use during floods and cyclones whereas the Boomerang, which is two-way, helps maintain connection between police stations situated in far off areas. The Mobile service pigeons, on the other hand, are carried by police units on the move and used for the purpose of communicating with the headquarter.

Their training is rigorous and a lot of attention is paid to their diet, which, however, suffered during the last summer when some of the birds perished causing consternation in the Cuttack police headquarters.

Eversince, a debate has been going on whether it is prudent to maintain a pigeon wing which entails a substantial expenditure besides engaging policemen who could have been fruitfully deployed elsewhere.

The IT revolution has certainly made the pigeon wing look anachronistic but there is no denying that it has its own utility during crises. Besides, they continue to lend a tinge of romanticism to the police force where Kabutar ja ja ja is still a favourite song.