BENGALURU: The Karnataka Postal Department’s online Rakhi Post service is set to help 1,990 sisters send Rakhi to their brothers, including 99 soldiers at the Ladakh border. To ensure all rakhis are delivered by Monday, staff across the country will work on Sunday.
The Rakhi Post was launched on July 26 and closed on July 30. The response in just five days has been heartening, S Rajendra Babu, Post Master General, Bengaluru Region, told TNSE. “Due to Covid-19 and a reluctance to step out to shop, the service has proved useful. We plan to launch similar gift or parcel services for other festivals,” he said.
“All the Rakhis purchased by the department were sold. Even after the service was closed, we kept getting calls from customers requesting its extension. But the deliveries need to be done and so we had to close it,” the PMG said.
There were teething problems pertaining to payment. “Those booking a Rakhi had to leave the home page to make payment through their personal banking. In future, we will introduce an option to make payment through UPI or apps on the page,” Babu said.
Babu Srinivas, a postal assistant, is very happy. “For the last 15 years, my sister (who lives abroad) has been sending me Rakhis. She would transfer the amount to my mother’s account to make the purchase and hand it over. My sister was worried as she did not want my mother, who is 70, to step out.
My sister was delighted to hear about such a link. My rakhi reached my doorstep after she booked it online,” he said. Chief Postmaster General, Karnataka Postal Circle, Sharda Sampath, said that the step to send messages in different vernacular languages was received very well by customers.