India Post diversifies to cope with changing times

Chennai: With major postal services in the world phasing out door-to-door delivery of mail, the top brass of the postal department has said the future of India Post lay with parcel delivery services.

“Australia’s postal service, for example, has mo­re parcel deliveries than mail. In the same manner, if our e-commerce pi­cks up, most of the peo­p­le will make use of India Post (IP) since we are the only players to have the widest possible network, and IP will still have a chance to stay al­ive,” said Mervin Alex­a­nder, post master gen­e­ral, Chennai circle.

The department is, ho­w­ever, constantly engaging with people through its philatelic activities and special initiatives, like ‘My Stamp’, of wh­ich it has sold over 5,000 models. “We are aware of the fact that letters will start to dwindle in the coming decades. How­ever, we have already sta­rted to diversify our services. We are going to introduce core banking very soon,” said Mervin Alexander.

The philatelic activities of the department continue to find takers. “St­amp collection will help one develop patience and skill, those are the major benefits. The collection of stamps and putting them together needs a lot of skill; there is also great scope for learning about other countries,” said Dr S.S. Sukumar, former state president, Indian Medical Asso­ci­ation.

The department perso­nnel claim that as many as 60 lakh letters and greeting cards are delivered during New Year and Christmas.

“I still preserve my father’s letters which become precious after some years. The youth, these days, do not know what they are missing because they we­re never in that era. My brother has written long letters to us, scolding us; it br­i­ngs back a fragment of memory when one re-re­ads it today.

E-mail pinging does not give the feel of a handwritten letter. We have lost our writing and reading habit over a period of time,” said Dr Sujatha Priya, faculty of English at An­na Univ­ersity in Chennai.

Next: Several post officesin state of acute disrepair

Several post officesin state of acute disrepair

Prashanth Vijayakumar | DC

Chennai: Several major post offices in the city are on the verge of caving in due to the postal depa­r­tme­nt’s engineering wing ad­opting a lackadiasical app­ro­a­ch to renovation. A series of wa­­­ll collapses at the Park and Eg­­­­more post offices has had po­stal sta­ff fear that more such could occur.

Chetpet post office staff aver that their building will be next in line as the cracks in the ro­ofs are widening. Their rep­eated pleas to improve infrastructure have been disregarded. “Many post offices do not have even basic toilet facilities. We have brought this to the higher officials’ attention innu­m­e­rable times, but in vain,” com­plained a staff member of the Chetpet postal circle.

Restoration work has begun at the Park post office, where the mishap occurred when no one was present, but members of the Postal Union fear for th­eir colleagues in other post offi­ces.

Chetpet post office that needs urgent renovation.

Even the historic General Po­st Office (GPO) complex, near Parry’s Corner, constructed in 1884 and which is under Sch­edule One of the Heritage category, is awaiting renovation. “Fire is reported in many heritage buildings these days.

We should be more careful and start GPO’s restoration as soon as possible. There is no point in delaying the process,” said Dr S. Suresh, state convener, Ind­ian National Trust for Art and Culture Heritage.

Senior postal administrative officials said that all necessary measures were being taken in this regard which would allay the fears of their employees over dilapidated buildings. “Wo­rk is going on in some pla­ces: soon we will cover all the problematic regions,” said a senior India post official.