Kathmandu, April 20:

While the international service of the General Post Office at Sundhara is partially operational, the domestic postal service has come almost to a halt due to the ongoing general strike called by the seven-party alliance.

Over 500 bags of ordinary letters to be delivered to different districts have been stockpiled in the office godown due to the halt in transportation services. A number of letters were yet to be sorted out owing to staff crunch. “A number of staffers could not come to the office due to the halt in vehicular movement,” said Shiva Prasad Regmi, a postal officer.

The number of people seeking postal service has also declined drastically. The number of registry letters collected on April 5 was 5,263 while it was only 618 on April 6, the first day of the general strike. Only 164 registry and around 4,000 ordinary letters to be sent overseas were collected on April 17.

On a normal day, the post office dispatches around 7,000 ordinary and 3,000 registry mails to different destinations within the country and 5,000 ordinary and above 1,000 registry mails are sent off abroad.

The office has been managing to deliver mails to 20 districts by air. But delivery by air is not so practical as the weight limit of postal cargo is only 10 kg per flight, according to Baburam Pandey, senior postal officer.

Although Pandey claimed the international postal service has been less affected by the general strike, the Express Mail Service (EMS) officials said the service had declined by 50 per cent during the strike. “We have piles of parcels to be delivered. We can neither deliver them nor can the customers come here to receive them,” said Mohan Sharma, an employee at the EMS section. An average of 25 parcels are being dispatched abroad daily during the strike. On a normal day, the EMS section dispatches at least 50 parcels to various countries.

Delivery of domestic parcels has almost halted while parcels have been coming in from overseas. According to an official, the domestic service has dropped to 25 per cent during the strike. Money order and Postal Saving Bank have equally been affected by the strike.

The employees of the Central Post Office had halted work from 11-12 am on April 17 to express solidarity with the ongoing movement. Post office is the country’s only public amenity, which is accessible to every citizen across the country. Each VDC at least has one post office but not all are operational. The establishment of post office in Nepal dates back to 1877 during the Rana regime.