Project: Dak Seva

Author: Vandana Gupta

Anuj ran straight to his grandfather’s room leaving his bag, his shoes and his tie along the way.

“Grandpa,” he cried full of energy. “I have to make a project for school. It has to be the best. You will help me, wont you?”

“Of course I will Anuj,” said grandpa with a laugh. “Why don’t you go get changed and put your things in their proper place? I’ll get us some snacks and you can tell me what you want to make. If we work sincerely, the project will definitely be the best.”

With mugs of chocolate milk and some snacks, Anuj sat down with his grandpa.

“So, what is the topic for this project of yours?” grandpa asked.

“It needs to be on one thing where India is number one,” said Anuj.

“Then why not make a project about the Indian Postal Service?” asked grandpa.

“The postal service?” asked Anuj a little confused.

“If you want to get in touch with a friend or a relative who lives in another city, what would you do?” asked grandpa.

“I’d call them on my phone or I’d send them an e-mail,” said Anuj.

“Well, during a time before telephones were common and computers never even existed, we would write letters by hand and post them to people. The people who would ensure that your letter reaches the other person properly work for the postal service,” explained grandpa.

Anuj listened with fascination.

“In fact, a lot of small towns and villages still use the postal service to send and receive letters. Even thought the first post office was opened by the British, Indian kings had already been sending and receiving letters through messengers for many years. Now we have over 1.5 lakh post offices across the country out of which 89% are in villages,” said grandpa.

“What would happen at these post offices grandpa?” asked Anju.

“Why don’t you bring that blue back from my cupboard,” suggested grandpa.

Anuj quickly returned with the bag.

Grandpa pulled out a few old letters and showed them to Anuj. “This is a post card. They were the most popular but you can’t write too much on them and anybody can read what you want to say. If you wanted more space to write and a little privacy, people used an inland letter. But if you wanted to write really long letters, you wrote them down on sheets of paper and put them in a envelope before posting it,” said grandpa.

“Was all this done free of cost grandpa?” asked Anuj.

“Post cards were the cheapest, inlands were a little more expensive and if you’re using an envelope, based on how heavy it is, you affix a stamp for a certain amount of money,” said grandpa.

“What do stamps look like grandpa,” asked Anuj.

“The first stamp issued after independence featured the symbol of Ashoka on it. The ones meant to be sent to foreign countries had the picture of the Indian flag with the words ‘Jai Hind’. Later, stamps featuring pictures of Indian leaders started coming out and now stamps have featured actors, sportsmen and Indian landmarks too.”

“Yes grandpa, I have seen stamps of Sachin Tendulkar,” said Anuj. “But how do the letters reach the person they are meant to?”

“The sender mentions the address of the person they are sending the letter to on the envelope or card,” said grandpa showing the address mentioned on an envelope.

“What is this number here?” asked Anuj.

“That is a pin code,” said grandpa. “To make sure that the letters are easily sorted and sent to the correct place, each area in each city in each state is allotted a Postal Index Number. The first three digits help identify the city and the state and the last three digits help identify the locality in each city.”

“Who makes sure that the letters reach their destination grandpa?” asked Anuj.

“If you want to post a letter to someone, you put it in a post box. Then a postman comes and picks up all the letters inside to the area’s post office for sorting. Once the letters are sorted according to the pin code, the letters are sent to a post office for that particular area. Then, the local post man there delivers the letters,” said grandpa.

“Posting letters seems like it should take a lot of time grandpa,” said Anju. “What did you do if you wanted to send something urgently?”

“We used the telegraph service for this and we could send very short messages through it. The post offices can also handle parcels, send and receive money through money orders and even deposit money like how you would at a bank.”

“Wow grandpa, I’ve never learnt so much in such little time,” said Anju happily.

“Well, not that you have all the information, let’s start making that project, shall we?” said grandpa.

They gathered some information from the internet, used some of grandpa’s old letters, post cards and stamps.

“Grandpa, what shall we do about the first stamps issued by independent India?” asked Anuj.

Grandpa suggested that they draw them by hand. They also drew the map of India and marked the state’s pin codes. On separate sheet of chart paper, they listed all the services offered by a post office. They even made models of a post box.

After several days of hard work, the project was ready and Anju went to school to show it to his teacher. He had named his project ‘The Best in the World, The Indian Postal Service’. Grandpa congratulated Anuj for a job well done and Anuj was very happy.  He had learnt a lot about the Indian Postal Service.