More than 15 months after being forced to shift the Thennur Post Office functioning on Shastri Road to a department building at Birds Road about three km away, the Department of Post is still struggling to find a new building for rent for the office.
Thennur is one of the 21 post offices for which the department is looking for alternative premises as it has been forced to move from the existing rented accommodation because of various reasons. In several cases, the department has been forced to vacate their existing rented premises on request from the property owners.
The Thennur post office, functioning from a house on Shastri Road for long, was shifted in February 2013 after the landlord asked the department to vacate the place.
The office was shifted to a department building on the Birds Road almost near the Head Post Office much to the discomfiture of hundreds of people in the locality.
A large number of senior citizens patronising the post office have been forced to travel the long distance for their work. “Many senior citizens drawing pension and using other service at the Post Office have to go a long way now,” says Sivaramakrishnan, a senior citizen.
Although the department has been desperately hunting for new premises, the high rentals in the city’s prime localities pose a problem.
According to sources, property owners are not willing to rent out their premises to the department on the standard government approved rates fixed by a committee based on various parameters and sign contracts for five-year period. There was no scope for annual rental enhancement and the rent fixed is binding on the owner for five years. With Thennur being a prime residential area, the market rates are much higher than the standard rental fixed by the department, sources said.
Some civic activists have been calling upon the State government to provide space for the Thennur Post Office in public interest. Although a former Dean of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital had reportedly come forward to offer some space on the hospital premises, the authorities had said that the land was required for the hospital expansion, the sources said.
Repeated tenders called by the department in different newspapers have evoked poor response or did not match the conditions, sources said. Tenders are being posted on the India Post website.
According to sources, the department is on the look out for space for the Thillai Nagar Post Office as the corporation is planning to re-develop a defunct market complex, where the post office is functioning.
The department is looking for alternative rented premises for Thennur, Woraiyur Bazaar, Town Hall, Ariyalur, Kallagam, Gangaikondacholapuram and Mathur post offices in Tiruchi division.
