Indiapost is a joke

July 17, 2007 | Filed in: Rants

UPDATE: My old I-20 was delivered today, July 18, 2007. One month after it was sent. And in not-so-good condition.

The Indian Postal Service, or Indiapost, is a complete and utter joke. Their mission, taken from their shoddily designed website:

To provide high quality mail, parcel and related services in India and throughout the world ; to be recognized as an efficient and excellent organisation exceeding the expectations of the customers, employees and the society

Yes, that is indeed their mission. And yes, I have copy+pasted the mission statement from the website as it is. The formatting is theirs. You might wonder why I hate Indiapost so much. Hopefully, you don’t.

A Form I-20 is a document that is essential for a person entering the United States on a student visa. It is issued by the university you plan to attend and is required in order to obtain a visa and then to be allowed entry into the United States by immigration officials. While I got my visa three years ago with the I-20 that Adelphi sent, I needed a new I-20 from Columbia since I am essentially a transfer student. Columbia sent me my new I-20 on June 19, 2007 via First Class Airmail. It’s July 17, 2007 today and I haven’t received the I-20.

On July 9, fed up with Indiapost, I decided to pay up the steep $55 charge for a new I-20 to be sent via FedEx. I got my new I-20 on July 12. Barely three days after I sent a fax to Columbia asking for a FedEx shipment. And all this with up-to-date tracking.

My parents’ recently got their passports (finally) via Speed Post, an allegedly faster service by Indiapost. The delivery man asked us for a tip. When we gave him Rs. 20, he said it’s Rs. 50. My father yelled at him and I thought that was great. But my mom decided to give him the money anyway because she didn’t want any bad wishes from him. I was livid. The guy is just doing his frakking job! The passport office already took money for the delivery when my parents sent in their applications. Why should we have to pay up Rs. 50 to this guy? And why did it take 4 days for the passports to get from Chandigarh to Hissar. Isn’t this supposed to be Speed Post?

The situation in larger cities is slightly better. Letters via airmail actually get delivered in a week or two. But I’ve lost several rakhis sent by my cousins who trusted Indiapost.

And the biggest issue that rankled me is a report in today’s Economic Times where it was reported that Indiapost wants to reduce FDI in the courier sector from 100% to 49% which would have been a huge problem for the likes of FedEx and DHL that are major players in the Indian market. As if that wasn’t ludicrous enough, they also want complete monopoly in delivering letters under 300 grams. Why? So that they can lose more important letters, of course.

Here’s the deal. Indiapost either doesn’t want to or for some mysterious reason cannot provide efficient services, mission statement be damned. And by trying to prevent greater FDI, they want to ensure that other biggies can’t as well. Indiapost cannot compete with the likes of FedEx, UPS, and DHL, and hence want help in the form of ridiculous bills. Look, competition is here to stay. If you want to stay competitive then you have please your customers. Hike prices by a reasonable amount if you’re cash-strapped but don’t leave your customers high-and-dry by losing or delaying important and potentially time-sensitive documents.

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I agree with you fully. India Post does not have anything called SPEED POST. It is a damning service, where it is your Good Luck if the consignmenment reaches at all or reaches within time or you are not illegally charged by the Delivery Post Office even if your Article is prepaid

I agree. Indeed, i have not yet received my first I20 sent on 14 march 2007 from university of colorado, boulder. I waited for almost a month and then requested the university to send it again.
There is nothing like speed in the service SPEEDPOST. When i tried to track my packets, the indiapost site displays “Data not found”, that after 7 days.

Hi ,
i will not agree with u guy.Bcoz u r giving conclusion for a vast department with ur single situation(in millions of pieces).if i say that the total courier system was failed with my situations which i have faced,did u agree with that.i will give u one example my frn send me 1 lakh rupee dd in july in blue dart courier,they took 140 fr that(in this case india post will take only 25 rupees) and till now iam awaiting that dd.And that bloody courier even not responding to my call.what u will say for this.
i can understand ur pain but can imagine hw far they(the courier service) are covering geographically even indian government has no restriction in this prespective less than 10%.u r thinking like a small kid who thinks for his only(like that he is the only person to get all things if he could not get that he will cry and he will blame the entire society).u r living in some city and u will not care for money thts the situation why u roaring like this but the situation is that government is giving service even it was in great loss from the past 50 years.And one more thing u r blaming a vast networked and service oriented and vast winged organization,bcoz they r not only in courier sector they are also in banking and insurance and in so many sectors they are expanded.u cant come to a conclusion with ur situation.

generally if an organization handling 100 mails u will get 5 problems it will not seem like a huge.but an organization handling lakhs of mails a day there may be situations of failure like 10 to 20 but it will looks like huge.

so pls left ur narrow mind prespective not only in this situation and in ur future endeavours so u will get good marks in ur life.thk u bye. take care

If you’d paid a little more attention to my post, you would not be criticizing me for picking on Indiapost for an isolated case. I have faced several delays on their part over the years, most notably with rakhis that were either never delivered or delivered so late that they didn’t matter anymore. Oh and did I mention the fact that the guy delivering my parents’ passports wanted Rs. 50 just for doing his job? And I know friends who’ve had important mail delayed too.

I never claimed that Blue Dart was a good courier service. In fact, now that you’ve mentioned your situation, I shall be careful the next time I need to courier something. Your remark on my location is absolutely false and unwarranted. My home is in Hissar, Haryana which is a small town about 160km from New Delhi.

Finally, if they hiked postage rates by minor amounts, they would be able to operate in profit and then improve their service. I realize that it must be hard for them to continue delivering our mail when they charge so little. But you can’t keep waving that flag again and again as an excuse for inefficiency. If the government can’t run Indiapost, give it to a private company that can turn it into a profit-making venture.

India Post is the best organisation in the world today. They will deliver yesterday what you intend to send tomorrow. They never pilfer articles. They charge next to nothing for sending even alphonso mangoes.

If the post man is on leave, their postmaster general will deliver the mail

Dear Vivek, Your views aptly axpresses the frustation and anguish of millions of hapless customers. I have tried unsuccesfully to lodge my complain in their web-based customer care service. I am yet to receive any response from them.

Its not sufficient to make a conclusion from your individual experience. There will be some problems with any industry/ department handling such large quontum of work. Dear u might not be knowing that this is the department having more than 155000 locations i.e. post offices and to set up and handle such large network with goverment obligations is not a joke. Do u understand not a joke…!
How can u justify that your I-20 which was sent as an an-accountable mail reached India in time and than got delay in delivery!
And i think u would have got results if u had complained in written regarding bribe asked by postman.

I TIP my postman every now and then, I give him money to buy new glasses too.

If you come to know what that poor man earns you will not complain for him asking of 50 rs. from you. If you tip a poor man who does your work you are not bribing him. I pay him a 100 every month so he brings my post without any fail hail or rain or snow. You go to a hotel you tip a bell boy or waiter then y not your postman?

If I am not at home and some registry or speed post is there he makes a call to my personal number. Couriers on the other hand return my documents every now and then even when my number is there on the envelope. talking about personal service.

My postman has an area of 8 kms radius to cover on his bicycle. which he does daily.

I send more than 2000 articals in a month and only 2 or so go missing in 6000 to 8000 packs, delayed they get cos of strikes and terror strikes but lost i think it is next to none. they even give me the insured amount if they loose my packet so i am safe of any losses too. As per DHL my one whole consignment of 2 days was lost by them and i just got a nothing from them even after 2 years. I am using india post for the past 6 years to send my articals and receiving since i was born. i love India Post.

Aditya: Good for you! I realize that the postmen work on fairly low wages and I have no qualms about tipping them when they do their job right. Go back and read the post again. We were offering him a tip but he wanted MORE. If that’s not being greedy and asking for a bribe, then I don’t know the definition of a bribe anymore. And yes, tipping a bell boy at a hotel is probably the same as tipping your postman, but I have never once seen a bell boy who turned around and asked for more than what we gave him. It’s great that you’ve had positive experiences with Indiapost, but I’ve had too many bad ones to say anything nice about them.

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