Technology aids India postal system
For 138 years, India’s colonial-era postal network has had low-paid mail carriers and a creaky infrastructure.
Now, the government hopes that throguh creative marketing and wireless technology it will get the mail where it needs to be and on time.
On Monday, India’s postal service was thrown open for the first time to advertisements, giving private companies the chance to have their message splashed across mailboxes and postcards, even on mail carriers’ uniforms.
India has the world’s largest postal network, with 158,000 post offices and 525,000 mailboxes serving more than 1 billion people. Yet not much about its methods have changed since it was founded by the British in 1864 including the color of its red mailboxes. The government now wants to shake off that colonial legacy – beginning with the mailboxes, which can be painted in any color advertisers want.
