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Postal services slide but charges go up

Prices increased after about 19 years. Departmental restructuring still remains stalled

Rizanuzzaman Laskar
The government has increased postal charges at a time when its services have marked sharp decline with the advent of cellular phones, emails and courier services.
Considering the rising cost of operations, the postal charge increase has been long overdue, according to sources at General Post Office (GPO).
The most recent amendment to the postal charges was in 1989 --nearly 19 years ago.
"Price of everything has touched new heights over the years. However, the services available at the post office and the charges for the services have remained quite the same," said a Dhaka GPO official.
"We have been planning to revitalise the postal services. Some steps have already been taken and some will be taken soon. Raising the charges is a part of the plan to
increase revenues," he said.
Under the revised price structure, the price for a postcard has been raised from Tk 1 to Tk 1.50 while an envelope fromTk 2 toTk3. The service charge tor all foreign mail has also been increased by 20 percent. The new price structure has come into affect on January 1.
Rafiqul Alam, additional director general of postal services, said. "The postal charges have remained unchanged for almost 19 years now. Yet the revised price increase, after all these years, is quite insignificant."
When asked if the price increase would cause the popularity of the postal services to wane further. Sultan Khan, senior postmaster at GPO. said, "Although the volume of regular individual mail has been on the decline, the volume of business letters, parcels and documents arc on the rise. Since the increase in price is not all that significant, I don't think it would affect our customer base that much."
The price adjustment comes as a little surprise to city dwellers "I don't find it all that surprising." said Abdul I Atif, a service provider who was seen standing in line at New Market Post Office
"When I first came to Dhaka in 1990,1 used to send post cards and money orders to my family living in the village. Few years later, I stopped using postal services. Then, about a couple years back, when 1 needed to use the postal services again, I was quite amazed to discover that prices of everything else has gone up, but the charges at the post office were still the same," said Latif.
Mehzabeen Khan, a resident of Dhanmondi, is another loyal customer of the postal services who appreciates the postal department for its low rates for parcel services. She said although the charge has been increased, it is still cheaper than courier services.
"1 use the parcel service to send clothes, ornaments and other necessary items to my daughter who lives in California. It is extremely cheap, compared to the local and international courier services," she said.
Though there is no statistical data available to prove it, it appears that a large number of people are increasingly avoiding the postal services and leaning toward more reliable and convenient communication mediums such as cellular phones, internet and courier services for their day-to-day communications.
"Why should I use the postal services when I can use more sophisticated courier services? There is no way to track a package in postal services and there is not even any guarantee that it will arrive on time or if it will arrive at all." said Aziz Rashid, a Moghbazar resident.
"My money order of Tk 2,000 was lost due to the negligence of post office officials. After this loss, I always prefer the courier services," said Muhammad Mannan, a resident of Rayer Bazar.
Besides being plagued with unreliable service, the postal department also fails to supply a sufficient stock of envelopes and postcards for the citizens --another reason for die falling popularity of the service.
"The other day I could not find one single envelope in the whole area. A stationary store owner was even surprised to learn that 'people still write letters'!" said Matiur Rahman from Shyamoli.
"Not everyone has access to mobile phones or computers. Majority of the people in the rural areas have to rely on theTk2 envelopes for communication. I low come there is a shortage of envelopes when the authorities should encourage the use of postcards and envelopes?" he said.
Meanwhile, plans to restructure the postal department are being stalled for quite a while now. At present, the department is suffering from acute shortage of personnel and logistics. The department is also riddled with corruption and inefficiency, admitted a number of postal department officials.
"The postal department barely has the manpower to support the entire populace. For instance, we have the same num-
her of mail carriers as we had in the 1980s. Therefore, there may be some cases of inefficiencies," said Sultan Khan
According to sources at the GPO, the postal department has an annual budget deficit of Tk 100 to Tk 200 crore. It is hoped that the increase in postal charges would help the department somewhat reduce the enormous loss.
A regular mail, posted from Dhaka, is supposed to reach its destination within Dhaka in one day, two days to reach headquarters of five other divisions, three days to district headquarters and four days to reach the rural areas.