Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Sept 19: Incompetent delivery of services is earning flak for one of the most old and reliable institutions of the country – the Indian Postal Department.
Lethargy of the employees of the Andaman and Nicobar Postal Department has grown to such proportion that customers are forced to read the bulk of subscribed newspapers or journals through book post from their native places in mainland in one go.
Leave alone, exorbitant delays in delivery of essential posts like Speed Post or Registered articles.
“I am a regular reader of Malayalam Manorama, a daily newspaper of Kerala. Being a native of Kerala, I subscribed for the newspaper through Postal Department to keep myself abreast of happenings in my home state earlier this year. But to my shock, never in the last over nine months, I was delivered the newspaper on time. To add to my woes, the Postal Delivery Man dumps all the 30 editions of a month in the first week of the succeeding month at my residence. What do I do with the lot? I meaningless to read a newspaper edition delivered after 30 days of publication. If the postal delivery doesn’t improve in the next few days, I will be forced to stop the subscription,” claimed a resident of Shadipur.
“Even postal articles meant to be delivered promptly are delayed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I recently shifted job from Pune to Port Blair.
To get vital documents, Bank accounts transferred to Port Blair, I opted for the Postal Services. It proved to be a mistake.
After crosschecking through the online Speed Post Tracking Facility, I called up the Post Office here to ascertain the arrival of my parcel. Though the Speed Post Tracking portal indicated that the parcel was already delivered at the designated Post Office, the office staff replied that the article was not received. Surprisingly, I received a call after about an hour that the article has been received and was asked to collect the article. Such is the lethargy of the postal employees that even Speed Post articles are not delivered to customers at their residences,” says Abhijit of Bhatu Basti.
With a network of about 103 Post Offices throughout these islands, the Andaman and Nicobar Postal Department should initiate major steps to revamp services in the territory. Officials in all branches across the
islands should be instructed to execute duties with utmost dedication to restore the confidence of the people towards the country’s oldest and reliable institution.
