World Post Day on Tuesday:

Postal network evolves to meet global challenges

By Pramod DE SILVA

Ours is a fast changing world, where it is possible to share a document or a picture with a person on the other side of the world in just a few seconds, while carrying on a live video conversation. The cost? Zero. The world has indeed advanced in ways that we could not have imagined even 20 years ago.

In this high-tech world, writing and sending a letter seems to be such a simple exercise. A letter takes quite a few days to reach its intended destination even within a country and internationally, a week or so. It may not seem fast to those of us accustomed to the world of email and www.

However, in the early days, mail was a revolution. Several things had to happen to make the worldwide postal system what it is today. In the ancient days, messengers carrying letters and documents travelled on foot and/or on horseback. The horse was a little faster, but it still took days for delivery.

The charming Nuwara Eliya post office

The train and a little later, motorised transport helped revolutionise mail delivery. What took a week earlier could suddenly be delivered in just two days, for example. Most international mail is now routed by air (Par Avion), which is the fastest option.

The other major advances were the invention of the postage stamp and the formal introduction of a worldwide postal delivery agreement and system. The introduction of the Penny Black, the world’s first postage stamp in England in 1840 on a proposal by Sir Rowland Hill, turned the postal system upside down. It was then usual for the recipient to pay for the delivery, but the postage stamp made it simple for the sender to pre-pay the cost of delivery. The recipient did not have to pay anything at all.

Streamlined system

The other major breakthrough was the inception of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) on October 9, 1874. This day is still celebrated as World Post Day, by the 193 Member States of the UPU. The purpose of World Post Day is to create awareness of the role of the postal sector in people’s and businesses’ everyday lives and its contribution to the social and economic development of countries. The celebration encourages member countries to undertake activities aimed at generating a broader awareness of their Post’s role and activities among the public and media on a national scale.

The UPU took far-reaching decisions to streamline the world postal system. Today, we can affix a few stamps and send a letter to any address in any part of the world and the host country delivers it free to the recipient. Even in the age of email, there is nothing quite like sending a handwritten letter to a loved one.

In fact, the UPU annually organises a letter writing competition for children, which was won this year by Marios Chatzidimou from Greece, to highlight the importance of old-fashioned letters.

Writing letters has become a simple exercise in this high-tech world

It is not only letters that are delivered by the postal system. Documents, parcels, magazines and newspapers and a variety of other goods are sent by mail. The world postal system faces tough competition from the major courier companies (in fact, the postal systems of some countries are owned by courier companies) and of course, Internet and email for instant document transfer, but for everyday letters and documents the postal system is still a reliable workhorse.

Post offices too have evolved over the last two centuries, offering a range of value added services, including telephone, fax, money transfer, banking and bill payment facilities (some one billion people hold savings accounts in postal financial institutions),commemorative stamp sales and somewhat ironically and paradoxically, email itself. The postal system is modernising itself at a rapid pace. If we think of the Internet as an ‘enemy’ of the mail system, nothing could be further from the truth. People do buy a lot of stuff on the Internet and someone has to deliver them. Enter the postal system.

e-commerce is developing at warp-speed. According to a report by Interactive Media in Retail Group, total business-to-consumer e-commerce sales – estimated at 690 billion euros in 2011, are expected to pass the trillion euro mark in 2013. If the world postal system can gain even half of these orders, leaving the rest to courier companies, that would still mean a huge profit. The Internet is thus a great opportunity for the postal system.

UPU Congress

These issues are being taken up at the UPU’s 25th Congress now under way in Doha, Qatar, coinciding with the World Post Day. As the UPU’s outgoing director general Edouard Dayan notes, “Letter-post volumes are still an important revenue source, but they are declining. Posts must be innovative and diversify the business, and governments must give them the tools to do so. Several countries, including developing ones, show that a postal network that is adapted can be a formidable tool for developing trade, financial inclusion, social cohesion and solidarity”.

Sri Lanka too is moving ahead on these fronts. This country has one of the most vibrant and extensive postal systems in the entire region, even though there is a lot of room for improvement in areas such as postal coding.

Sri Lanka’s Postal Department, which runs 437 post offices throughout the country, faces the challenge of reviving the full gamut of postal facilities in the North, emerging out of three decades of strife. More than Rs.70 million has been allocated to develop postal facilities in Jaffna and Mannar.

The authorities have not forgotten to give a special place to the humble stamp, with old and new Sri Lankan stamps issued on a variety of themes and occasions being highly coveted by collectors worldwide.

The Ministry of Posts and the Postal Department have organised several programs to mark the World Post Day. These include a stamp exhibition from October 6 to 10 at the Postal Headquarters, a National Post Day ceremony at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute presided over by Minister Jeewan Kumaratunga and a special bicycle tour with 250 postmen on Tuesday. A new set of stamps depicting flowers of Sri Lanka will also be issued.

The post will remain a pivotal part of our lives, evolving to meet changing needs and times. Regardless of whether we send a letter to the next town or a parcel to the other side of the world, the post will continue to connect people around the world and enrich their lives in a multitude of ways.