You may be surprised but it is true. In this world of advanced infotech, there are several villages in Goa that does not have a good mobile network and the villagers are still dependent on the Indian Postal System which is on the verge of getting extinct.
In the 21st Century when most of us rely on our emails which help us connect with people all over the globe in a heartbeat. It’s extremely rare to see people queue at the Post Office except in cases where one wants to use the seed post services, especially when it comes to sending government documents to different places. With the advent of e-filing, even IT Returns are done online which doesn’t require one to send the IT returns by post. An email has certainly made our lives easier.
The Indian Postal service, though massive, generally provides excellent service. Letters, parcels sent from Goa, Mumbai and other states generally reach their destination, give and take a day or two.
The prices to send parcels or letters are pretty reasonable too. Parcels to be sent abroad require a customs declaration form, which is available with the post office itself.
Email and internet services though are most beneficial to those who have a strong internet connection and certain villages are sadly devoid of such facilities.
Residents of Cotigao and certain areas of Poinguinim Panchayat have Indian Post as the only means of communication.
He past couple of days have seen the mobile range of private service providers like Idea and Vodafone crashing and with BSNL being unavailable in these areas, people have to rely on the Indian Postal Service.
Shivkautuk Desai a local youth lamented about the fact that despite requests to BSNL the tower is yet to be installed and if one wants to network in their mobiles they have to travel a couple of miles away.
Sham and Siddarth Desai blame the government authorities for their lax attitude and apathy towards the village and its inhabitants. They feel that the villagers have been missing out on a lot of facilities due to this attitude.
“When we talk of Digital India and e-initiatives, why is that we don’t have even basic 2G connectivity? Aren’t we a part of India,” he questioned.
Locals have also complained about how important messages have not reached people in time due to their inability to access the internet and mobile services.
Source: Goa News Hub
