Post office relocation set to pose problems to senior citizens

Hyderabad: Come August, the residents of Fateh Darwaza will have to travel 23 kms to avail the postal services as the existing post office in the locality will be shifted to Munaganoor village in Abdullapurmet mandal in Ranga Reddy district.

Senior citizens, widows and physically handicapped will have to travel in the beginning of the month all the way to suburbs to avail the schemes.

According to locals, the 50-year-old post office has thousands of account holders who avail benefits of various schemes and services, which would be badly affected.

Particularly, this facility remains much easily accessible to the senior citizens and shifting would mean creating new problems for them.

The locals enjoy, SB account, RD account and pensioner's accounts also speed post service facility. "The senior citizens are having a good facility from this post office.

If this is relocated anywhere, this action will be very painful to thousands of account holders. Moreover this post office is located here for more than fifty years in this locality," Mohammed Mustafa Ali, Shalibanda corporator, pointed out in his letter addressed to higher authorities.

The issue was later brought to the notice of MP Asaduddin Owaisi who in turn asked the authorities to reconsider the decision. "I am receiving number of representations from the people of the area of Fateh Darwaza and surroundings that there is a large number of pensioners obtaining pensions from the post office.

If this is shifted, the pensioners will suffer a lot. Moreover there is no other post office situated in and surrounding area. It is also pertinent to mention here that it is a densely populated area and requires post office," he noted.

However, even the local officials are not clear about the reasons for shifting of the post-office far away from the existing location, where it is running for almost 11 years.

This post office provides various kinds of services on par with a big office like speed post, money orders, registered letters, along with foreign letters, SBI accounts, fixed deposits and several other government schemes. This also provides postal life insurance, said Muneer Ahmed Khan, the postmaster.

The post office is running smoothly without any problem, as daily we receive around 25-30 letters and many a beneficiaries visit our office for SBI accounts and many other schemes.

It is the only post office in the nearby areas and is being relocated. The post office has recently received a letter to vacate the place and relocate the post office in an area near Ibrahimpatnam from higher officials, he clarified.

TDP leader Mohammed Ahmed and local RTI activists like Saifullah have also demanded the postal department officials to withdraw the decision.