CHENNAI: Postal services across the country will come to a grinding halt from July 5, if the India Post employees went ahead with their indefinite strike plan. The strike, called by the Joint Council of Action of various postal employee unions, is planned to protest against India Post’s move to shut down 9,797 urban post offices.The strike was announced after talks with the Postal Board on June 6 and 7 failed. Plan to close down post offices are part of the recommendations made by a foreign consultant - McKinsey & Co - for optimising India Post’s mail operations.Members of the council noted that the recommendations of McKinsey were not suitable for the Indian context. This had already led to an extremely inefficient system of delivery. “In place of 315 National Speed Post Centres, now 89 Speed Post Hubs functions. As a result, speed post parcels booked in a district are sent hundreds of miles for processing, and then routed to the respective centre. Articles that were delivered the same day now reach the destination with two to five days of delay,” read a statement from the Joint Council for Action. This has been causing revenue loss to India Post as customers now go to other operators.An office-bearer of the Federation of National Postal Organisations said the closure of sub post offices and their merger into larger local post offices would mount the pressure on postal delivery staff. This would mean that postmen would have to travel longer distances to hand over mail. It would be even more difficult at the centres, where postmen would have to make more than one round in their beats.
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