President
A P J Abdul Kalam inaugurated the year-long celebrations of India Post on
completion of its 150th year in service.
The event was marked by the release of a set
of four commemorative stamps in the denomination of Rs 5 each and
also release of a commemorative coin by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The postal services in India commenced with a skeletal network of 701
post offices under the control of a Director General on October 1, 1854. Today,
the postal network has 1,55,000 outlets in the country which is the largest in
the world.
The British Postal system in
India was established by Lord Clive in 1776 which was further developed by
Warren Hastings who established the Calcutta GPO in 1774 followed by Madras GPO
in 1786 and the Bombay GPO in 1793.
The Post Office Act of 1854
reformed the earlier postal system providing total monopoly to the Government
for the management of post Offices and the exclusive privilege for conveyance
of letters whereas the 1837 Act united the Post Office organisations in all the
three presidencies into one All India Service.
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