A week-long celebration to mark the 250th anniversary of the General Post Office (GPO) started on Thursday.
Governor C.V. Ananda Bose inaugurated an exhibition at the Rotunda on the “Journey of mail” where the history of India’s postal system and the GPO itself was traced through stamps. It will be on till March 19.
Models of different modes of mail transportation down the ages at the Rotunda as part of an exhibition, on view till March 19, to mark 250 years of the Calcutta GPO
Chief postmaster general, Bengal circle, Niraj Kumar spoke of the journey since the time of Warren Hastings in 1774. “We expanded our network with new modes of transportation, like the railway mail service in 1853. Postage stamps as tokens of advance payment of postage started in 1854, money order in 1872 and postal life insurance in 1884,” he said.
There will be activities like the release of a special cover on river mail, a mobile exhibition on a tram, a special carriage cover on a boat and a heritage walk. “The message is we are always on the move,” he said.
Vineet Pandey, secretary, posts, said post offices were emerging as a “one-stop shop for the delivery of government services, like Aadhaar and passport”. “Riding on the Digital India network, the post office has moved from mail delivery to service delivery. Through 165,000 post offices and technology-driven initiatives, India Post is driving financial inclusion,” he said.
The governor released a special cover and a gold-plated silver replica of a 1968 stamp on the GPO, that will be kept in the GPO’s museum.
He also announced 10 awards for postal workers to be instituted in the name of his mother, a “post mistress”.
