1. aaj bhi unki yaad mey yeh dil tadpta hai
khamosiyo se ye dil na jaane kya kya banya krta hai
khun jaane unke dil mey thi mohbat mere liye ya woh humse yun! dillagi krte rhe
humne tou mohbat mey sb kuch luta diya aur woh ise ek khel shamjte rhe…..
The introduction of pigeon post is attributed to Akbar, and not Jahangir, as mentioned in
several accounts. Pigeons were trained and housed in the royal palace, in the Kabutar-Khaana, found
even today in the relics of Mughal palaces. They were used to carry urgent missives over short
distances, exclusively for royal purpose. The practice continued to be favoured by Jahangir who
extended its use to special occasions.
The Indian Postal Services were established in the current format largely under the East India
company. It was first established under the name "Company Dawk". In 1688, the first post office of the
Company Post was established at Bombay/Madras. The system was reorganized and the service
opened to the general public by Warren Hastings, the first governor general of Bengal with
supervisory powers over Bombay and Madras, in 1774. A Postmaster General was appointed and
metal tickets or tokens were issued to pay for the postal charges. The presidencies of Bombay and
Madras followed suit.
In 1835 a Committee was set up for unification of customs and postal system of all the presidencies.
The result was the first Indian Post Office Act of 1837. It not only provided for uniform rates and
routes but for the uniform designs and other specifications of the postmarks for each category of post
office. A Commission was set up in 1850 and submitted its report in 1851 that resulted in the post
office act of 1854. Under the provisions of this act, the monopoly of carrying mail in the entire area of
British possessions in India were granted to Indian Post office and office of the Director General of
Post Offices of India was established. Mr. H P A B Riddle, till then the Postmaster General of North
West Presidency, was appointed the first Director General in May 1854.
Adhesive stamps were introduced on 1 October 1854 on all India basis. Meanwhile in 1852 adhesive
postage stamps were issued for use within the province of Sind, now in Pakistan. These were the first
adhesive postage stamps in Asia.
Services
Post office sevings schemes
Postal life insurance
Mutual fund
Forex serrvices
Money remittance services
Instant money order
History of the Indian Post Office

2. No other institution ever has come closer to human lives as the Post Office.
Post office reaches every nook and corner of the country. This is one of the
reasons why many of the Government, non-government organizations, when
faced with difficulties of reaching the largest possible number of people, have
thought of utilizing the agency of the Post Office for the purpose.
The Indian Post Office was recognized as a separate organization of national
importance and was placed, for the first time, under the unitary control of a
Director General of the Post Office in India on October 01, 1854. It thus
completes 150 years of its operations this year.
The Indian Postal System is not carved out of a single rock. The postal systems
of more than 650 princely States, the district postal systems and Zamindari Dak
were merged with the main British postal system. The bonding of the
fragments has been so fine that one could be tempted to think that the
institution is monolithic.
Lord Clive first established the postal system in the country in 1766. Later on
Warren Hastings developed the system by establishing Calcutta Grand Post
Office (GPO) under a Postmaster General in 1774. In other Presidencies of
Madras and Bombay, it came into existence in 1786 and 1793. The Act of 1837
first regulated the Post Office on a uniform basis to unite the organization
throughout the three Presidencies into one all India Service. The Post Office
Act of 1854, however, reformed the entire fabric of the postal system with
placing the Post Office of India on the present administrative footings on
October 01, 1854.
In 1854, both the Posts and Telegraph departments were born. From the
beginning, the set up was run on welfare lines. Profit was not the motto. In the
second half of the 19th century the Government declared that so long as the
Department payed its own expenses, nothing more was desired. The same

3. trend continued even in the 20th century. The operations of post office and
telegraph developed side by side. On the eve of the World War I, in 1914, both
the departments were amalgamated.
Integration of Services
The financial and political integration of the Indian States made it necessary
and inevitable that the Government of India should pursue the policy of
integration of the postal system of the Indian States with the larger postal
system. There were States, which maintained district and independent postal
organization with local postage stamps of their own. The letterboxes of these
states were painted in green colour to distinguish them from the Indian Post
Office letterboxes, which were painted red.
In 1908, it was found that out of the 652 native states in India, 635 States had
cast their lot with the Indian Post Office. Only 15 States remained out; the
outstanding ones being Hyderabad, Gwalior, Jaipur and Travnacore.
A major reorganization of the Posts and Telegraph (P&T) Department took
place in 1925. The accounts of the P & T were reconstituted to examine the
fiscal profile of the Department. The attempt was to find out the extent to
which it was imposing a burden on the tax payers or bringing in revenue to the
Exchequer, how far each of the four constituent branches of the department,
the Postal, Telegraph, Telephone and Wireless were contributing towards the
result.
Multifarious Activities
Indian Postal service has not only confined to its main task of delivering letters
and being an effective mode of communication. It might appear surprising but
the Post office was maintaining the dak (post) bunglows and sarais in those

4. early days. For well over three decades from 1830s, the Post Office also
facilitated road journey of the passengers. A traveller could book his seat in
any palki, boat, horse, coach and cart carrying mails and parcels on payment to
the post office a fixed amount in advance and take rest on wayside dak
chowkee, later on known as dak bungalow.
During the plague epidemic in the late 19th century, the Post Office was
assigned the task of selling quinine packets. It is a country of joint families and
small incomes where millions of rupees have to be sent in the shape of small
sums. The money transactions were carried out through the agency of the 321
Government treasuries, located in district headquarters. In 1880, the extensive
agency at the command of the 5090 Post Offices was handed over the transfer
of small sums by way of Money Order, thereby obviating the difficulties of
travelling to the district headquarters and identification of the payee.
In 1884, Postal Life Insurance was born, to insure the lives of ‘native’ postal
employees other than those in high positions since the insurance companies
operating in India were unwilling to insure common natives.
Freedom Struggle
When the nation went through turbulent times, the post office also suffered. It
witnessed arson and loot after 1857. A Deputy Postmaster and an overseer
were killed, a runner wounded and a number of Post Offices in Bihar, UP,
North West Frontier Provinces (NWFP) were looted. In the NWFP and Oudh
practically all communication lines were closed and quite a number of post
offices could not be reopened for a whole year even after the violence had
subsided.
Postal strikes of 1920, which lasted for about five months, caused complete
dislocation of the postal services. In the 1942 Quit India movement, a number
of Post Offices and letterboxes were set on fire and mails could only be
exchanged with great difficulty. It led to dislocation of postal lines in many
sectors.

5. Milestones
Over the years evolution of mail delivery has grown from foot to Speed-post
and e-post. Post Card was introduced in 1879 while Value Payable Parcel (VPP),
Parcel and Insurance were brought into being in 1877. Indian Postal Order had
its origin in 1930. For faster delivery, Postal Index Number (PIN) Code was
introduced in 1972. In view of fast emerging changes and scenario Postal and
Telecom Departments were segregated in 1985. Speed-Post was launched in
1986 while keeping pace with the changing needs of the times,
Metro/Rajdhani/Business Channels, EPS and Money Order via VSAT were
introduced in 1994.
Postal Runner
The postal runner finds a prominent place in the folklore in every traditional
society. In India one comes across stories and poems on it in almost every
regional language.
Earlier there was provision of providing a drummer to each runner while
passing through forest tracts. In dangerous tracts an escort of two
torchbearers and two archers were also supplied after nightfall. There were
numerous instances of runners being carried away by tigers, drowned in
flooded rivers, bitten by venomous snakes, buried in avalanches or murdered
by robbers. The Director of Public Information, Government of India, informed
the Parliament in 1923 that during the year 1921-22, there were 57 cases in
which the mails were plundered by highway robbers as compared with 36 in
the preceding year. Seven out of 457 cases were attended with loss of life and
in 13 instances the mail carriers were wounded.
Integrating Factor

6. The post office has helped bind the nation together, support the growth of
commerce and ensure a free flow of ideas and information. The evolution of
mail delivery grew from foot to horseback, stagecoach, railroad, automobile
and airplane. The character, volume and transportation of mail have changed
over the years. Today, emphasis is on postal mechanisation and automation,
which have been undertaken to improve productivity and quality and provide
access to quality postal services.
Postal services have social and economic functions that clearly go beyond a
simple business rationale. This is especially true in the developing world. A
reliable postal system is a critical component of the modern information and
distribution infrastructure and an important catalyst for social and economic
development and poverty reduction.