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29 Mar 2024, Edition - 3181, Friday

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Coimbatore

Inland letters and post cards turn a scare commodity at post offices

Neya Tabitha

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Many post offices in Coimbatore have been functioning poorly and have not been treating its customers properly. They do not have stock of inland letters and post cards and this includes their offices at Red fields, Court and Collectorate.

If this continues to happen, the postal services will face the same fate as BSNL, observes Jayaraman C M, the president of Citizen’s Voice Club.

A press release from the CVC states that many customers return without completing their work due to the frequent failure in their computer systems. This hinders the smooth functioning of the services.

At times of power outages, the employees sit idle and send back their customers disappointed. They are unable to even withdraw money due to outage.

When asked to provide uninterrupted power supply, being an essential service organisation, they say that their generator is not in working condition due to nonrenewal of annual maintenance contract, says Jayaraman C M.

During shut down days, the post offices do not book money orders, speed post or registered letters .One cannot weigh the letters because of absence of power supply to electronic weighing machines.

These post offices should do the work manually with the available facilities. The post masters could arrange for manual weighing machines in their respective post offices whenever a shut down by TANGEDCO is announced in their limits, says Ravisankar N R, President of Consumer Awareness and Protection Association (CAPA).

Jayaraman C M says that a citizen’s charter should be displayed and name badges or Ids must be provided to the employees. Being a government employee, it is their duty to be transparent to the public.

Contact information regarding customer complaints are not displayed for the public to view, he added.

“The post office at Pothanur has cycles and TVS fifty parked inside the office. This is a disturbance especially to senior citizens as they have to cross this to reach the service counter.” he says.

The post office at Srinivasa Nagar is located in a remote place. Many requests have been submitted to shift the office to one of the buildings in the nearby Chettipalayam main road, but no action have been taken so far.

Jayamraman suggests that the postal services can take up bulk government advertisements on health, sanitation, government-supported housing schemes and can also consider selling court fee stamps and stamp papers, which will improve the income of the department.

They must organise periodical meetings conducted by the Senior Superintendent of Postal services or the Post Master General once or twice in a month to look into the complaints and the feedback.

He further expressed concern that the postal department delayed delivery services. A postal delivery takes forty eight hours to reach Somanur which is just twenty kilometres from the Collectorate.

Being a welfare state, it is the duty of the government to take necessary measures to uplift the government services, he added

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