 The
first post office was established by East India
Company in Calcutta in 1727. This was shifted to
the Court House building in 1762. This makes the
Calcutta GPO the oldest post office in India |
 |
 |
The
largest post office in India is the Bombay GPO. |
 The highest post
office in the world is the Hikkim branch PO, PINCODE -
172114, in Spiti, at an altitude of 15,000 feet. See a letter from Hikkim here.
The first airmail to be flown in
the world was at Allahabad on February 18, 1911. Read about this here.
India has the worlds largest
postal network. With approximately 152781 post offices,
India has 1 post office for around 6000 people and for an
area of 21 Sq Km.
The cancellation at the
highest point in the World took place on May 10, 1996
when a set of four stamps with the FDC on Himalayan
Ecology were carried by team of Indo-Tibetian Border
Police to Mount Everest. The stamps were released at the
base camp at a height of 21,400 ft.
The first cancellation of India
in space was done by Sq. Ldr Rakesh Sharma on board
Salyut - 7 space station. Lakshman Prasad of Aligarh
invented a special equipment for the cancellation of mail.
Dipak Roy of Calcutta is the only
Indian to design a stamp for the UNO.
Avinashilingam Home Science PO is
the first all woman post office in India, January 1966.
K Padmakshy Amma is the first
post woman in India. She joined the Trivandrum Postal
Division on February 19, 1959.
The only Indian Post office
outside India is the Dakshina Gangotri PO formed on
Antarctica under Goa Postal division on January 26, 1988.
A special case of mail literally
"handed over" is between Gangtok Head Post
Office and the Yetung branch PO on the China border. At
Nathula on the Indo-China border a runner hands over the
mail bag to the official from Yetung and collects the
mail. This exchange takes place twice a week and only 3
minutes is allowed for the exchange!
|
