Private couriers, private money order and advent of mobile and internet have severely affected the postal services in Bihar, which registered 91 per cent fall in the postal traffic in the recent years. The volume of letter and parcel has declined by 95.7 crore between 2004-05 and 2005-06. This notwithstanding the fact that the number of Biharis living outside their homes has repeatedly been increasing.
There was 91 per cent decline in one-to-one unregistered mail--from 108.1 crore in 2004-05 to 9.5 crore in 2005-06.
According to the director of the Postal department, Pranava Kumar, this is a global phenomenon and the spread of phones and internet are responsible for its decline. There has been 20 per cent decrease in one-to-one mail all over the world during this period.
However, the loss has been compensated by the business-mails, which is considered as second-class mails. Most of the banks, industrial houses and other commercial units depend on the postal department for distributing their annual statements, information about new schemes, shares etc, he said.
The private couriers and money order services are cheap as well as fast. But the speed post service has increased to 28,84,230 during 2006-07.
In all there are 9,054 post offices in Bihar, out of which 8,622 are in rural areas and 432 in urban areas.
Source:http://bihartimes.com,16-03-08
