[Assam] Dedicated aircraft for N-E postal services

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

        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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