Postal Services in India

 India postal network in the world with 155000 post offices spread all over the country as on March 31, 2001, of which 89 percent are in the rural sector. Post office in India it plays a vital role in the rural area. They connect these rural areas with the rest of the country and also provide banking facilities in the absence of banks in the rural areas. They come under the department of posts which is a part of the Ministry of communications and information technology under the government of India. The apex of the department is the Postal Service Board. The board consists of chairman and six members. The six members of the board hold portfolios of personnel, operations technology, postal life insurance, human resource development (HRD) and planning functions. The joint secretary and financial advisor to the board is also a permanent invitee to the board

 India has been divided into 22 postal circles, each circle headed by a Chef

Post Master General. Each Circle is further divided into regions comprising field units called Divisions, headed by the Postmaster General. Other functional units like Circle Stamp depots, Postal Stores Depots and Mail Motor Service may exist in the

Circles and Regions. Besides the 22 circles, there is a special Circle called the Base circle to cater to the postal services of the armed forces of India. The Base Circle is headed by an Additional Director General, army postal service holding the rank of a

major general. The modern postal service in India is more than 150 years old. In 1854, the post office in the province of Sindh, (then in British India), made postal history, when India became the first country to issue postage stamps. In October

In 1854, all the post offices of the Indian subcontinent came under centralized control. In the same year railway mail service was established and India had a network of 701 post offices across the continent. In 1911, India achieved another “first” when a

A biplane from Allahabad to Naini flew with 6500 pieces of mail. The flight was the first official air mail in the world after independence, the Indian government broadened the vision of the postal system to reach that ranges from arid deserts of Rajasthan and Kutch to the icy heights of Laddakh. India has the highest post office in the world in Sikkim at a height of 15500 feet (postal code -172114). Indian postal service provides many facilities like- general or registered mail, parcel post, speed post, express post, e post and special courier service known as EMS-speed post. They also offer a number of post office savings schemes like national savings deposits and term deposits.

Mr. Rohith. R, Head, Dept. of Commerce, Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna