BENGALURU: Hundreds of heritage enthusiasts and stamp collectors thronged the General Post Office (GPO) on Saturday to purchase the Karnataka Philately Passport, with queues stretching from the premises towards the Press Club.
The GPO sold 1,500 passports on the first day of the two-day sale, with another 2,000 scheduled to be sold on Sunday. Priced at Rs 600, the passport is designed as a travel diary that encourages people to explore Karnataka’s heritage sites and collect local stamps and unique Permanent Pictorial Cancellations (PPCs) from designated post offices. The passports are being sold over the counter with no online booking or pre-booking facility.
In Karnataka, 8,000 passports are being made available at four locations. Besides the Bengaluru GPO, 1,500 copies each are being sold at the head post offices in Mysuru, Mangaluru and Belagavi. On Saturday, these three centres sold 500 copies each, with 1,000 more scheduled for sale at each location on Sunday.
V Tara, Director of Postal Services, Bengaluru Region, said three people who had visited all the listed post offices and collected the unique PPCs were felicitated by the GPO.