Residents of the southern suburbs have been making multiple visits to post offices to get postcards, in the last couple of days.
Post offices in Chromepet and Pallavaram have put up notices about the lack of postcards and envelopes, sold for ₹5. While there has been a decline in the use of postcards and inland letters for personal communication, postcards are still sought after by commercial establishments and residents to write to the government.
V. Santhanam, a social activist in Chromepet, said volunteers from lake protection committees in his area recently visited post offices to purchase postcards for a campaign. “We wanted to conduct a postcard campaign against the discharge of sewage into the Veeraraghavan lake and write to the Municipality. But there were no postcards in Chromepet, Pallavaram, Tambaram and St. Thomas Mount post offices,” he said.
However, residents can source postcards at a much higher price of ₹5. A single postcard is priced at 50 paise at the post offices. Several of them have also raised complaints at the post offices. Officials of the Postal Department said postcards and inland letters were still used by banks and financial institutions to convey loan interests to customers. Several other commercial institutions also use postcards to convey details about their schemes.
Nearly 13 lakh postcards were sold in the Chennai City Region in 2017-18. “We have a shortage of postcards and inland letters. We are making arrangements to purchase them from other States. The circle stamp depot in Mylapore will begin distributing them to post offices in a few days,” said a senior official of the Tambaram postal division.
