Veerappa Kallappa Bugganor, 75, of
Byalahalli-K in Bhalki taluk in Karnataka’s Bidar district, visits the village
post office every day. That is not because he has business there every day, but
because he likes it.
The stone bench in front of the post office
is his favourite spot. Senior citizens like him gather there every morning and
sit and chat for hours. “We come here because of the Dakiya; he is a friend of
the village,” says Mr. Bugganor, pointing to Mallappa Biradar, the rural postal
employee (RPE) at the one-person post office in this village of 2,500 people.
Mr. Bugganor is a beneficiary of Sandhya
Suraksha, the State government’s old-age pension scheme. The RPE comes to his
house in the first week of every month to hand over the monthly pension of Rs.
500.
He also collects money from the Bugganor
couple for their recurring deposit. The village has 450 beneficiaries under
various social security pension schemes, a majority of them women. The post
office also distributes wages to the 600 labourers in the village covered under
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS),
whenever works are taken up in the village.
For them and several others in Byalahalli,
Mr. Biradar is the one to turn to in case of need. Most of them are unlettered,
and they request him to read and write letters or fill in application forms.
The post office accepts telephone bill
payments and taxes and other dues to government bodies such as panchayats.
While distributing letters and parcels, Mr. Biradar has managed to enrol a
hundred rural postal life insurance policies and a similar number of savings
bank or recurring deposits, over the last few years.
The post office serves the villages of
Byalahalli-K and Neelammanahalli, and a hamlet, Neelammana halli tanda. For Mr.
Biradar, a typical day starts at 8.30. Till noon, he sits in his office tending
to paper work, sells stamps and covers, and makes or accepts payments. Then he
goes around on his moped distributing letters or collecting payments.
“On most days of the week, I’m required to
visit all three places,” he said. The 40-year-old RPE has been doing this for
20 years. Till two years ago, he used a bicycle to go around.
“People in rural areas still have a lot of
faith in the postal system. The business of courier service companies is
restricted to the cities. People in the villages still write letters and send
and receive postal parcels,” Mr. Biradar pointed out.
According him, not much has changed over
the years in the way rural post offices function. “Our work largely remains the
same. The only improvement has been the rise in the habit of saving money among
people. There was not a single savings bank account in the post office when I
joined. But now, every few months someone comes here, seeking to open a savings
account,” he said.
“The Department of Posts should improve its
infrastructure in the villages,” says village headman Baburao Patil. “First,
the post office should have its own building. More important, it should
diversify its services. Value-added services like filling passport applications
and electronic money transfers are available only in the cities. They could be
started here,” he suggests.
Source :- The Hindu
