Sainbu, Lalitpur, March 5:

At a time when the postal service is being sidelined for its slow delivery and quick electronic mails replacing it, Sainbu village development committee’s (VDC) extra post office (EXP) is inundated with service seekers.

With rapid urbanisation and growing population in Sainbu, people’s demand for postal service has also gone up.

According to Shyam Kumar Raut, representative of Sainbu EXP and assistant field examiner at the VDC, when it was started in 1997 there was not much workload. “We start getting flooded with work since 2000, as organised urbanisation attracted new housings and settlements here.”

On a daily average basis, the EXP receives 15 registered letters, 25 letters and even Express Mail Service which have to be delivered in 9 wards of the VDC, said Raut, adding that there are more than 200 households in each ward and that the mails come are from migrant workers, within the country and to various government’s branch offices located here.

“With the limited salary of Rs 1000 per month for each employee, we three temporary employees — representative, distributor and postman find it hard top make both ends meet,” Raut said, adding that in view of the burden of work here, they have proposed that the District Post Office transform EXP into an Area Post Office. This would enable EXP to deliver better services. Krishna Man Pradhan, acting postal officer at District Post Office, Lalitpur also agreed that of the 35 Extra Post Offices in Lalitpur district, the one at Sainbu is the most busy. “Considering the work in Sainbu, we have called for upgrading it into an Area Post Office, but chances are slim because the central office is not far from it.”

This Extra Post Office has to deliver the mails of Bungamati Police Office located in Sainbu ward 5, Sainbu Health Post, Central Office of Labour and Employment Promotion Department, Radio Nepal Sainbu Transmission Centre, Outreach Clinic of Maternity Hospital, Nakkhu Jail and Sainbu Housing Project of Kathmandu Valley Town Development Committee.