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