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Department Of Posts
The Department of Posts, generally known as India Post, is the postal system controlled fully by the government of India. In the remote areas of the country it is the only service that is present. It has more than 150 thousand post offices across the country and majority of them are in the rural areas. In the rural areas it also offers financial planning services through fixed deposits and it is done to encourage savings and planning habits among rural populations who otherwise do not have access to banks. It works under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. While it offers an interesting array of services now, it can trace back its origins to the very basic postal services established by the British. So let us have a look at its colourful history,
A brief history of the Department of Posts
The British East India Company had established itself firmly in India in the early 17th century. It started with coastal locations but as it ventured inside the subcontinent, it felt the need to develop an official mail system. It opened the first post office in Bombay way back in 1688 and soon replicated the same in other two major cities under its control, Calcutta and Madras. Over the next century its services spread across other cities and smaller towns and collaborated with other service providers in princely states but there was no integrated service under one command. This changed in 1837 with the Post Office Act XVII of 1837. This paved the way for a centralized postal system which eventually led to the Department of Posts as we know it today.While originally it was established for company purposes it soon began to serve general public too. In 1850 Lord Dalhousie decided to evaluate the postal system. As a result the Post Office Act of 1854 came into existence which introduced postage stamps for the first time in India. The postal rates were now fixed by weight and not by distance and the Indian Post Office had monopoly in carrying mails within the country. However, some princely states still had their own systems but they collaborated with the British and were not in conflict. The Department of Posts is also responsible for development of telegraphy in India. Telegraph system first appeared in India in the 1820s when the East India Company started constructing signalling towers to connect major centres such as Bombay and Calcutta. This system was however not widespread and was rendered obsolete by the development of more sophisticated electric telegraphy.
The administration changed a bit after the mutiny of 1857. After that the Company was removed and India was brought under direct rule of the crown. The Indian Post became even more active after that and it was handling 43 million letters annually and also distributing 4.5 million newspapers every year. The change in administration saw the employment of the first superintendent of the post office in 1870 and the head office was based in Allahabad. It continued its service for the remaining years of the British Raj and after the Indian independence in 1947 the government decided to expand it further to serve the remotest corners of the nation. In the recent years it has concentrated on improving its service through IT integration and computerization of its systems. It has come up with faster premium services such as the Speed Post which delivers at a much faster rate for a price. These initiates have enabled the Department of Post to stay relevant in the age of high tech communication.