Reviving Postal Service

The postal services in Nepal have served as an important link between the remote corners of the country, bringing important mails even in the absence of road connectivity and signals. For the people living away from city life, the only connection they had with the outside world was through postmen who visited them from time to time with letters. However, the rising popularity of modern technology, such as e-mail and messaging services, stemmed the service's growth, and it became less important until its use was limited to banks' and governmental agencies' notices. Now the newly formed government, led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah, has decided to revive the post offices to bring public services closer to citizens' doorsteps.

According to the government’s 100-point reform plan, it will deliver passports, citizenship certificates, licences, national identity cards, and other important documents directly to citizens. The potential is enormous if one takes advantage of post offices’ extensive network, from provincial networks, such as that of Koshi, which have units operating in each district and even locally. Think about the convenience for a hill farmer getting his passport delivered right where he lives, instead of having to go all the way to the capital city. This idea reflects easing public services inside the country, including links for parcels going internationally to 27 other nations (of which only 20 remain in use due to global conflicts). However, directorates, such as the one in the Biratnagar Postal Directorate, report no formal directives yet, limping along with outdated letter sorting and scant parcels — barely four or five international ones monthly, yielding peanuts in revenue. 

There is a crunch of human resources. Only 35 staff members are handling 2,000 incoming letters plus local distributions, with postmen on contract, walking or borrowing personal bikes amid fuel shortages. As per a news report, published in this daily the other day, postal offices operate across all 14 districts and 137 local units in Koshi Province. But there is very minimal staff at each office. Also, means of delivery, including vehicles, are a rarity, destroyed or unreplaced. Letters from Kathmandu take a week to arrive, routed via Chitwan thrice weekly, then delayed further by foot or infrequent motorcycles commandeered for bigger runs. The postboxes are dusty with minimal use. The local branches do not have enough facilities to ensure that mail gets dispatched on the same day. This concept of door-to-door deliveries could become a mock stock without proper technology upgrades and infrastructure improvements.

Assigning heavy lifts to a system starved of adequate resources feels like handing a bicycle to climb a mountain. If the service delivery delays, it erodes trust, and inefficiency breeds frustration. Private couriers thrive because they invest in speed and reliability. So, the government channel should also focus on steady delivery. The government should begin modestly, experiment in prepared locations, provide postmen with necessary vehicles, and introduce the tracking system. There is a need to strengthen human capital through training rather than contracts, along with integration of applications for mixed services. The offices should learn from international good practices wherein posts collaborate with e-governance. If the government provides proper funding, the revival of service delivery could lead to a renaissance, whereby post offices are transformed into real centres of service.