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Hindustan Times

Speed Post breakdown leaves rakhi senders in the lurch

Days after going through a major software upgrade, Speed Post of India Post was hit by a technical glitch that left several stranded in queues across the city on Tuesday. The snag was said to be due to a server breakdown. Speed Post breakdown leaves rakhi senders in the lurch The snag in Speed Post, which prioritises time-bound delivery while being address-specific, came at a time when many people use it to send 'rakhi' to their relatives and friends ahead of Raksha Bandhan. As such, long queues were seen outside post offices in Gomti Nagar, Indira Nagar, Mahanagar and the GPO in Hazratganj. Several waited for hours only to be turned away or told to return later. These post offices underwent Advanced Postal Technology 2.0 (IT 2.0) upgrade only last week, due to which regular services were affected from August 1 to August 3. The upgrade was launched to modernise postal services, improve tracking, automate backend operations, and offer seamless customer experiences. However, its premature implementation without robust testing appears to have backfired. 'This is the only time I send something by post, and now they're telling me that the server is down. I've been coming here since Saturday, and every day they say that it will be resolved 'by tomorrow',' said Rekha Sinha, who wanted to send rakhi to her brothers in Mumbai and Bhopal from the Gomti Nagar post office. Similarly, Sristhi, 17, wanted to send a rakhi to her brother in Delhi. 'I've been standing here since 12 pm, and it's almost 3 pm now,' she said. 'I usually send 10 to 12 rakhi to cousins and nephews every year. Speed post is affordable and reliable, but now I may have to pay double or triple for private courier delivery. That too, with no guarantee of timely delivery,' said Mohit Rastogi, a college student. Postal staff, too, seemed helpless in the face of the outage. 'We recently migrated to the new IT 2.0 system, which was supposed to streamline operations. But ever since the update, our systems have been crashing or freezing. Even simple bookings are taking 20-30 minutes,' said a postal employee at Gomti Nagar Post office in Vibhuti Khand. Chief postmaster general Pranav Kumar said the services were restored after complaints. 'I visited many post offices and solved the glitches. We understand the urgency and emotional value of timely deliveries during festivals. The glitches are being addressed, and we hope to restore full services.' Pic cap 1.