BENGALURU: Public who are dependent on the Postal Department were put to major inconvenience on Wednesday as the scheduled two-day closure announced for financial transactions on April 1 and 2 stretched unannounced into the third successive day. With no advance intimation given, there was much confusion in the minds of the public, particularly pensioners. The operations are expected to be normal from Thursday.
The closure of business transactions for two days is an annual feature. However, the extension onto the third day hit the public hard, conceded a senior postal official.
“Pensioners, particularly those in rural or remote places, who usually visit their neighbourhood Post Offices to collect their monthly pensions across Karnataka had to return empty handed after they learnt the money was not deposited,” he said. The money gets deposited directly into the postal account of pensioners and many of them use an ATM card to withdraw their pension but the direct transfer into the account also could not happen.
A pensioner Raagina Ammal (name changed) in Bengaluru told TNIE, “I check my account on my phone on the first of every month and the money is promptly deposited. With two days elapsing, I got worried today (Wednesday) that something untoward had happened and sent my son to my post office. I was told that there was no problem and I would get my pension in a day. This pension is my lifeline for survival and so I got a bit panicky.”
With the Good Friday holiday for the Postal Department, followed by Sunday and the closure for transactions officially announced for Monday and Tuesday, the public have been definitely inconvenienced. “It must have appeared like there was a very long break in operations,” said another official. “Those who operate Savings Banks accounts, Recurring Deposits and Fixed Deposits with us too were impacted. In addition,eneficiaries of many social welfare schemes run by the Centre like Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana for the girl child and other schemes too were inconvenienced,” he added.