The India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) opened about 85,500 accounts of people in Dehradun’s post offices during the Covid-19 induced lockdown. Moreover, IPPB also conducted 11,000 transactions of about Rs 3.25 crore in the district during the same time period.
When most of the private courier and delivery services were not operating during the lockdown period, India Post in Dehradun continued its work and kept the essential services running here.
Talking about the work done by personnel in postal services during lockdown, senior superintendent of post offices of Dehradun, Ansuya Prasad Chamola stated that since public entry was mostly restricted in post offices, about 40 per cent of work was affected at that time. However, he continued, the postal services did some different tasks during this period too. According to him, booking, supply and delivery of essential commodities like PPE kits, medical kits and important documents increased during the pandemic. "There were lots of bookings related to essential commodities like medicines, PPE kits and we even supplied ventilators to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). About 15,500 bookings were made from Dehradun to deliver in other areas and 6,500 supplies from other locations were delivered in Dehradun and Haridwar," said Chamola.
He also informed that postal services also assisted people in money transactions during the crisis. "From March 23 to June 30, the Dehradun postal services facilitated 6,500 electronic money orders of about Rs 1.65 crore in Dehradun and Haridwar districts. Besides, IPPB also conducted 11,000 transactions worth Rs 3.25 crore through Aadhaar-enabled Payments System (AePS) here," informed Chamola. He further added that through the Postinfo application of the Department of Post, they got 450 requests to provide services to senior citizens and those who are incapable of doing transaction tasks during the lockdown. Meanwhile, he said that the post offices of Dehradun district are working in full swing and added that the various tasks and services provided by the postal department during the pandemic will also help people to strengthen their belief in government postal services too.
