I t was the year 1978 when both the Labony Estate post office and I made Salt Lake our home. The township in those days was a far cry from the bustling place that it is today. Except for Sector I and some parts of Sector II, there was hardly any habitation in the other areas. The major landmarks were Karunamoyee Housing Estate on the southern fringe and PNB at the entry point. All nearby areas were known by tank numbers!

I was a student in those days and my mother sent me to the post office to buy a few aerogrammes. I still remember I used to walk to Salt Lake Post office from our AE Block home. Who knew that one day I would be joining the department of posts!

In those days, the township had very few post offices. The Salt Lake Post Office near PNB was the first post office, later rechristened as Bidhannagar sub post office. Incidentally it is still housed in the same rented building at AB33.

In the early days, a mail peon would fetch mail from the Sreebhoomi post office and carry it on a bicycle to Salt Lake post office. Labony Estate, Sech Bhawan and AE Market post offices were established thereafter. CC Block post office was the first in the township to have its own spacious departmental building. It was inaugurated by Prasanta Sur, the then UD minister, government of West Bengal, on July 5, 1984.

The government in those days had decided that along with a market in every sector there would also be a post office. Sech Bhawan Post office was set up in a state government building and later converted into a delivery post office.

By now, Salt Lake had quite a few post offices but as more and more residents started moving in, demand grew manifold and the inadequate postal service could not cope with the mounting pressure. One must remember this was before the advent of e-mail and the only means of communication were letters and phone calls. Moreover, with attractive interest rates the residents made a beeline for small savings. Sech Bhawan and CC Block Post offices did delivery work but with restrictions on recruitment, the postmen were a scarce resource and the few who were on duty could not cover all the areas for delivery.

When the Purbachal Housing Estate came up, again a huge clamour grew for a new post office in that area. By then, I had already joined the Indian Postal Service for 11 years and at that time, was director, Calcutta region. A large delegation came to meet me at my Yogayog Bhawan office and handed over a memorandum, demanding a post office in Purbachal.

Eventually we could manage to find space inside the society and a post office was set up. The Purbachal post office was inaugurated by the then finance minister of West Bengal Asim Dasgupta in a grand function on July 30, 1998 in the presence of the then chairman of Bidhannagar municipality Dilip Gupta. The residents of Purbachal were very happy and thanked me profusely for the brand-new post office. A record number of savings bank accounts were opened on the first day!

Arundhaty Ghosh at the reopening of the postal museum at the GPO as chief postmaster general, West Bengal circle

At present, there are nine post offices in Salt Lake. In my various interactions with the senior postmen in the township, I have been told that in those days the residents of Salt Lake were mostly educated and prominent bureaucrats and professionals. Therefore, the staff had to be courteous and provide cutting-edge service. In the early 80s, Salt Lake was also a tony address with a sizable number of working couples. The postmen had such friendly relationship with the residents that they would leave an informal intimation and the residents would pick up their letters or parcels at their convenience, a practice which was formalised much later. It is unfortunate that such personal relationships are a thing of the past.

State finance minister and FE Block resident Asim Dasgupta at the inauguration of Purbachal post office on July 30, 1998

A post office needs reasonable space to provide all its services to the customers. In Salt Lake, CC Block post office offers all services such as Aadhaar enrolment, speed post, saving bank and ATM facility because it is housed in its own building.

Over the years, many Post Masters General have tried to modernise the rented post office buildings with limited budget and provide a pleasant public space. Ergonomics and comfort for customers on public premises was a foreign concept in our country. Public offices are dark and dingy because we rarely do town planning and when a planned township does come up, the planners fail to earmark land for public utilities such as post offices. However, in Salt Lake a plot was allotted for the post office and we can look forward to a new and modern Sech Bhawan post office building soon!

The Purbachal post office. Picture by Brinda Sarkar

“The post-office is a wonderful establishment! The regularity and dispatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!” So said Jane Austen, the famous novelist. In the present age, people may or may not share her views as communication has undergone a sea change and citizens may not need postal services frequently but the post office in its modern avatar, with E-com delivery and India Post Payments Bank, has reinvented itself and remains a mandatory public utility.

Mailmen to the rescue

The pandemic showed us how relevant the post office is even today. During the nation-wide COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 when the entire country shut down, the post offices remained open.

Arundhaty Ghosh in her Yogayog Bhawan chamber in 2018

In such a scenario, as director general (postal services), based in Delhi, I was finding it extremely difficult to connect the country and ensure delivery in the absence of passenger flights, trains and road transport, which had closed operations.

One day I got a frantic call from a Covid-19 test kit manufacturer who wanted to send his samples to some hospitals in Delhi and Mumbai for testing. We arranged to send those essential goods by cargo flights and from the airports to the hospitals by our red mail vans. Soon we arranged logistics that connected the entire country with cargo flights and mail vans, and were despatching Covid-19 test kits, medicines, PPEs, masks etc all over the country, including Calcutta.

Across Salt Lake, during the time, postal employees provided free home delivery of medicines as well as pension to the elderly residents of the township as a gesture of appreciation and gratitude to this unique township!

When I bid adieu to my service and came back to my CG Block home last year from Delhi, some of my friends and neighbours conveyed their appreciation for this service of the post office to the senior citizens. This probably was the best parting gift for me.

Arundhaty Ghosh joined the Indian Postal Service in 1986. From 2014 to 2018, she was the chief post master general of the West Bengal circle. She retired from service in 2020 as director general, postal services, the highest rank in postal services, as the second Bengali in the chair after Ganendra Prosad Roy in 1925, who happened to be the first Indian in the post.