KHARAGPUR: Even as you wonder what food to order online that would be delivered at your doorstep, a village in West Bengal struggles to receive a simple letter.
Even after 69 years of independence, Rautasol village seems non-existent on the map of the Indian Postal despite lying under the shadow of Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, one of the premier
educational institutes of the country. The village also shares its boundary with an upcoming commercial airport.
Home to around 250 people, Rautasol is not the headache of any post office. “We have eight villages under our jurisdiction, but Rautasol is not one of them,” said postman Shankar Chandra Jana of
Sakpara Post Office, located about 4 km from Rautasol.
Being non-existent on postal maps, Rautasol faces an identity crisis. “Most of our letters are never delivered. Sometimes, they come very late. The postman at Sakpara Post Office on humanitarian
grounds calls us if our letters come and we go and get them,” said Chittaranjan Mahato, who applied for an Aadhaar card some 8 months ago but still hasn't received it.
“Delivering them letters is not my duty. Working for over 27 years here, I personally know the residents of Rautasol and hence call them if their letters come to our post office,” Jana added.
Rautasol has no primary school, nobody in this village has got any MGNREGA work for even a day, and no house was built under the Indira Awas Yojana.
“However, politicians don’t forget to show their face once every 5 years with promises of integrating our village to a post office. Then they forget us,” said Olin Mahato. The village had voted for a Trinamool Congress candidate this Assembly election in April. Applications given several times to the officials have
never been responded.
Asked whether the rates of their lands would increase after the Kharagpur Airport is operational, the boundary of which is shared by their village, the residents laugh. “Who will give money for lands in a village that does not exist?”, said a village elder Niranjan Mahato.
With postman Jana set to retire within a few months, Rautasol is worried beyond limits. “Shankar Jana has known us for long. Some young person in his place won’t help us saying it is not his duty,” fears Niranjan.
Postman Jana wants to see Rautasol integrated to any post office before his retirement. “If Rautasol is connected to our post office, our staff is officially bound to deliver letters and important documents like PAN and Aadhaar cards to the village,” he said.