MINTU DESHWARA

The first post office in the country’s tea garden area quietly approaches its centenary in Sreemangal’s Moulvibazar.

The Kalighat Post Office, founded in 1923, is nestled between the lush greenery of a picturesque tea garden, and has been a steadfast presence in the lives of the local community for a century.

Nipen Paul, the general secretary of Bangladesh Cha Sramik Union central committee, said tea planting in this region began in 1840 in Kodala, Chittagong, and the first commercial tea garden was established in 1854 at Malnichara, Sylhet.

During that time, British officials managed the tea plantations and reached these remote areas via Kolkata or Assam.

In those days, the primary mode of communication between those residing in Sylhet and their loved ones in the UK was the exchange of letters through the postal service.

A letter dispatched from the Sylhet region to the UK would often undertake a journey lasting well over a month, if not longer.

So, the “Kalighat Post Office ‘’ was established in 1923, under the supervision of the Postal Department in Chattogram. It found its place on the opposite side of the James Finlay Tea Company’s Kalighat tea garden Hospital.

The code of this century-old post office is 3212.

Pranesh Goala, the UP chairman of Kalighat, said, “After its inception, this post office became the sole source of communication with the outside world for not just British officials, but also tea workers who came to Sylhet from various Indian provinces.”

“In today’s era of mobile phones and computers, letter exchanges have dwindled, but this century-old post office, the first in the tea industry, remains a proud centenary monument.”

According to Abdul Matin, the acting postmaster of Sreemangal Post Office, more post offices have been set up in the tea industrial region since Kalighat’s establishment, but it still retains a unique significance as the first of its kind.

Presently, a sub post master and a postman work at the local post office, who mainly remain occupied handling revenue related works of the postal department.

The World Post Day was celebrated yesterday.