Dedicated aircraft for N-E postal services
A STAFF REPORTER Guwahati, Aug. 29: The term snail mail may soon
become obsolete in the Northeast.
A Boeing 737-200 took off from Borjhar airport here this morning en route to
Imphal as the postal department, for the first time, got an aircraft to ferry
letters and parcels to different places of the region.
The aircraft, with a payload of 15 tonnes at a time, will operate on the
Calcutta-Guwahati-Imphal-Agartala-Calcutta route regularly. This is expected to
cut down time on delivery of mail by many days.
Union minister of communications A. Raja flagged off the first flight from
Borjhar.
The aspirations in the Northeast have been rising and that is why the
department of posts has chosen the region for its maiden service. It would not
only help the department of posts offer a better quality of service but also
provide the long overdue cargo link to the region, giving a fillip to trade and
commerce, said Raja.
The minister said this is in consonance with the special emphasis of the
Centre on development of the Northeast. The postal department has been making a
concerted effort to improve its mail network and infrastructure in the
Northeast in order to improve its service in the region.
The aircraft will connect the rest of the country with the Northeast through
its Calcutta hub. It has been leased from Indian (now a part of Air India) for
one year.
Secretary (posts) I.N.G. Khan said lack of a reliable mode of transmission
for carriage of mail, parcel and logistics for the region had remained a
constraint on the quality of service. This has resulted in not only the service
obligations of India Post suffering but also proved to be a hindrance to the
massive potential in mail related business activities that the region offers.
The problems were daunting in the region as there was a limit to which
aircraft can operate. Many of the MPs had also called for starting a dedicated
freighter aircraft for the region. We have now been successful in doing it and
it is a red letter day for the region, Khan said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this would improve connectivity to the
Northeast.
and open new vistas for citizens there to access markets and services in the
rest of India much faster and at a reasonable cost.
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