My experience with India Post: giving whinges to my dreams

Visiting Indian post offices for stuff like stamps, mails etc., is a distant memory for me. Recently, I had to interact with a couple of their branches in Chennai and the experience has been memorable. As memorable as being hauled over a skewer.

All I had to do was close my dad’s savings bank accounts and transfer it to my mom’s name. My dad had passed away last year and the process to transfer the accounts started well over six months ago. My first exposure to the financial services of India Post was my dad’s Pass Book. It resembled a book that has been given to a 3-year old. There were numbers, initials and scribbles galore – it appeared as if everyone who touched it at the Post Office wanted to leave his mark. During a visit to Chennai earlier this month, I approached them to complete the process. I was sent from the branch office to the Regional Office. The sight that hits you when you walk in there is this:

Here are two gentlemen busy figuring out how to give ‘Wings to the dreams’ of India’s populace. Notice the CPU that is a make-shift cupboard? Amidst this depressing mess were two angels: Mrs. Arokyaselvi and Mrs. Rajalakshmi. They were apparently deputed to this office to clear the backlog of pending cases. And they operated like a crack-o team. They were efficiency personified – they began by creating a summary of my parents’ accounts with the Post Office. It took them 10 minutes. Imagine seasoned Postal Office employees finding it difficult to sift through their own Pass Books! They quickly arrived at a conclusion and dispatched the necessary papers for closure. One small hitch though. The application form had to have a ‘Registration Number’ or some such, which had to be written by the staff at the branch where the account was held. So trudged all the way back to the branch and met the Asst. Post Master who had his forefinger right up his nose and was about to discover gold. He shooed me to the next table. The clerk there yelled back at him and asked him to fill up the number himself. A helpful soul at another counter finally wrote the numbers. To my horror -they were already there in the pass book! The folks at Park Town could have easily written it down themselves and nobody would have known.

Back at Park Town, I submitted my papers. When I complained about the branch office, I half expected it to fall on deaf ears. The crack team that helped me immediately filed a complaint to one of their superiors. Despite the heartburn and the stress, I was happy that the papers were closed. And oh, when I was about to leave, a peon-type gave me this idiotic smile and asked, ‘Yenna, aachcha? (So, is it done?) – obviously angling for a baksheesh. Some things never change, eh?

What good is a campaign that announces a logo change and new baseline,when almost all consumers interacting with the Post Office have to endure this? Thank God for the Arokaselvi’s and Rajalakshmi’s of the world in our PSU’s.