Thursday, July 25, 2013

India’s last telegram takes 9 days to cover 15 kms

Dear Comrades,

The last telegram in India took almost 9 days to cover only about 15 kms in a try to reach the recipient, which failed and the addressee had to collect it from the local post office.

Sujata Dutta, the addressee, reached on Monday afternoon to Ariadaha post office to collect the telegram that was sent by stamp collector Gour Chakraborty on July 14 at 11.10 p.m. from the central Telegraph Office (CTO) in Kolkata’s Dalhousie area.

Chakraborty said he is happy his telegram has completed its journey and became the last telegram in the world, even though it was a bit disappointing.

The CTO officials said delay was due to lack of infrastructure as the rush to send telegram on the last day was huge. More than 20,000 telegrams were booked on the day. The daily average was 5,000.

There were 75 telegram officers in the country. BSNL, the in-charge of the operations, claimed to have despatched 12,568 telegrams on July 15 out of 20,000 booked. The next day, spokesperson said delivery of all the 20,000 telegrams have been done.

The telegram service was started in India in 1850. After covering a journey of 163 years in serving India with delivery of urgent messages the postal department has shut down the service this year.

Just before the shutting down of telegram service the cost of first 30 words was Rs 29, and Re 1 thereafter for every word. It was more expensive than sending a SMS or e-mail.

http://www.runservices.co.uk
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