Bhubaneswar: Twenty-four Belgian Homer pigeons of the Odisha Police Pigeon Service on Saturday carried the missive of heritage conservation and preservation from the Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage (Intach) and flew to the police headquarters in Cuttack.

The message, written on a piece of paper, was inserted into a copper capsule tied to the foot of the pigeon.

The pigeons covered the of 30km distance in 37 minutes after making two rounds over the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology.

Pigeon service in-charge Nihar Ranjan Biswal, a sub-inspector of police, said: "All the trained pigeons fly at speeds of 65 to 80 km an hour. As there is a lot of commotion because of the presence of huge crowds, the birds were distracted for a moment. They could easily cover the distance within 25 to 30 minutes and could fly 250km at a stretch."

Biswal said: "Because of their homing instinct, they can identify the location they have to reach. We train them for seven days a month."

Superintendent of police (signal) B.N. Das said: "Odisha is the only state which maintains the service. We have our own breeding centre."

Former director-general of police and state convener of Intach, Amiya Bhusan Tripathy, said: "The objective is to create awareness on conservation and preservation of heritages using the service."

Stating how the pigeon service was an integral part of the Odisha police, he said: "The service dates back to 1946 when 200 pigeons were handed over to the police by the army on an experimental basis to establish communications with areas that had neither wireless nor telephone links."

An official said an interesting anecdote on the pigeon service was when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited Sambalpur in 1948 to lay the foundation stone of Hirakud Dam.

"Nehru was annoyed that the public had been kept away from the place and instructed that arrangements be made for the public to have access to the speaker his next event in Cuttack. On April 13, 1948, his note was sent through a pigeon to officials in Cuttack. While Nehru took seven hours to reach, the message was delivered in five. The original note in Nehru's handwriting with his signature is with a philatelist in Cuttack."

Later, the service was introduced in almost all districts with over 800 pigeons. However, after the development of modern systems, the service have become redundant. The service was the only line of communication to Banki during the 1982 flood.