Indian pigeons lose out to e-mail

["Irfan Khan" <khania@super.net.pk>]

26 March, 2002

Indian pigeons lose out to e-mail


India's Police Pigeon Service - which for more than half a century 
has provided a lifeline during frequent floods and cyclones in 
eastern Orissa state - is to be scrapped, according to a government 
proposal.  

The carrier pigeons were often a vital link between remote police 
stations when traditional communications failed, beating storms, 
disasters - and birds of prey.  

But the government's audit department now believes that the service - 
employing some 800 birds - has become redundant with the advent of e-
mail and electronic communication.  

The pigeon courier service dates back to 1946 - a year before India's 
independence from Britain - when it was handed to the police by the 
army. Its headquarters is based in the city of Cuttack.


Too expensive

According to the auditor general's office, it costs the state about 
500,000 rupees ($10,260) a year. 

P-mail, as carrier pigeons are sometimes known, were extensively used 
in Orissa during floods in 1982 and a cyclone in 1999, as radio 
networks were disrupted. 

The birds can fly hundreds of kilometres to deliver messages before 
returning to base. 

Delhi-based ornithologist Rajat Bhargava does not agree with the 
government proposal. "The old pigeon tradition should not be 
destroyed. It's a vanishing art which should be protected," he told 
Reuters news agency.

"Also, these pigeons are excluded from the Wildlife Protection Act. 
So they can be kept. We're against cruelty to animals. But we're not 
against captive breeding of domesticated animals," he said. 


Museum piece

Carrier pigeons are by no means a recent introduction in India - they 
can be seen on Mughal paintings, carrying love messages into harems 
or secret military instructions to soldiers in the field.

"Pigeon breeding is an art that goes back to Mughal days. Emperor 
Shah Jahan was one on the greatest breeders of pigeons. The tradition 
should be preserved," Bhargava said. 

Not everyone agrees. B N Das, superintendent of signals at the pigeon 
service headquarters in Cuttack, says that policemen assigned to 
pigeon duty in far- flung districts see the job as punishment.

"The pigeon service made practical sense when we were superintendents 
of police two decades ago, as there were no VHF sets at that time," 
Das told Associated Press.

"But now all police stations in Orissa are on the radio network, 
reducing the winged service to a museum piece." 

The redundant pigeons will be given to the state's wildlife 
department, according to the Indo Asian News Service. 


http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1892000/18920
85.stm