Hyderabad: Postal personnel rise to occasion in lockdown

Hyderabad: India's postal department has risen to the occasion and rendered valuable services during lockdown.

Lockdown could not dent morale of its staff who kept serving the public despite several odds. At least 150 people received their posts and parcels every day through India post in lockdown.

"Though we had less business in the lockdown, we observed an all-time high transportation of medicines during the lockdown.

Normally, we used to deliver medicines in rare cases but in the lockdown we delivered medicines to around 30 people each day," said M Vijaya Santhosh, postal assistant, India Post, Srinagar Colony.

"As it is unsafe for the post men to reach door-to-door in the containment zones, we have reached to customers of red zones through a phone call and requested them to collect it from our post office.

Around 150 parcels were collected by individuals from the post office as door-to-door delivery was not possible," she added.

Aadhar enabled payment services (AEPS) were highly utilised in the lockdown.

Around a number of 500 transactions observed per day during the lockdown whereas in general India post would hardly receive 100 to 150 requests a day for AEPS.

Money orders were least registered in the lockdown period. Similar is the case of international transactions. Speed post use was also limited during the lockdown. "Postal service is the best-connected service across India.

We are everywhere and in every village and state. It is our privilege to serve our nation in these crucial times such as lockdown due to coronavirus," said K Naveen, Postmaster, India Post.

"I was worried about my pension, but my money was delivered at my door and it stunned me as if the postmaster had brought the bank to my home.

India post is providing an incredible service and it is priceless," said Nixsan, a pensioner from Yousufguda Hyderabad.

Thousands of migrants were benefited by the postal transactions in the lockdown. The population of Hyderabad has been served with around 10,000 posts from each post office in Hyderabad, it is learnt.