DEHRADUN: A postman allegedly failed to deliver hundreds of important letters and parcels for nearly 18 months and kept them stuffed in sacks inside his private room in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district.
The case has raised serious questions over the functioning of the postal department in the Tungeshwar area of the Tharali block.
According to officials, the department has initiated an inquiry and issued a show-cause notice to the postman concerned.
The matter has triggered anger among residents, who have demanded strict action against the employee for alleged negligence.
Villagers claimed that three to four sacks recovered from the postman’s room contained a large number of Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, bank ATM cards, banking documents, speed post articles and other important mail.
Many of these documents, they alleged, never reached the intended recipients. Residents said the alleged lapse caused hardship to several people, particularly those who needed identity documents and bank-related papers for government schemes, financial work and other urgent purposes.
The matter came to light when a resident, Vinod Pandey, reportedly found his daughter’s Aadhaar card lying on the roadside along the Tungeshwar-Mal Bajwad road.
“When I asked the postman how such an important document was lying on the road, he did not give a satisfactory reply and kept avoiding the question,” Pandey said.
Suspicious of the response, villagers inspected the postman’s room, where they allegedly found sacks filled with undelivered mail. The discovery led to outrage in the area, with residents accusing the employee of deliberately neglecting his duty.
Villagers alleged that regular distribution of mail had not taken place in the area for around one and a half years.
They said people were repeatedly told that their documents had not arrived, while the mail was allegedly lying unattended in the postman’s possession.
Residents have now sought a high-level inquiry into the incident.
They have also demanded that all undelivered articles be properly recorded and delivered to the rightful recipients at the earliest.
Chamoli Superintendent of Post Offices Ajay Kumar said keeping official mail in a private room was a clear violation of rules.
“No postman is allowed to keep postal articles in his personal room. An inquiry has been conducted, and departmental action is being taken against the employee concerned,” Kumar said.
The incident has once again brought the issue of accountability in last-mile public service delivery into sharp focus in remote hill regions.