INDIA
India’s Post Office has suspended one of its delivery workers after it was found he had not delivered thousands of letters for more than 10 years.
The stash of old letters and packages was discovered by chance when a group of school children were playing in the recently abandoned post office at the village of Odhanga, in Orissa State, after the branch had moved to a new location.
They noticed large bags with letters sticking out, according to a local media report.
When they looked inside and discovered ATM cards and bank passbooks, they alerted their parents and soon the authorities were on the case.
It is thought there were some 6,000 letters and packages with the oldest dating back to 2004.
Some 1,500 letters were salvaged while many of the remaining items were soggy or damaged by termites.
The reluctant mailman was named as Assistant Branch Postmaster, Jagannath Puhan who for most of the past decade was alone in charge at the village office.
Authorities said that while he appeared to be lazy in delivering the mail, he was smart in how he went about it.
Any registered mail or speed post was duly delivered as he knew the sender would likely track the delivery, officials said.
Ordinary mail, however, had a good chance of ending up in the storeroom rather than with the intended recipient.
According to one media report Mr Puhan said that for several years he “couldn’t walk properly and was not in a condition to deliver these letters”.
Authorities investigating the case say they were puzzled as to why over all those years no resident had raised complaints.
Whatever mail will be able to be salvaged will now be delivered, albeit with that slight delay of several years.
Bhubaneswar, 16 August, 2018
