With it having the largest postal service in the world, as India is now under total lockdown, it is using its huge, record-breaking operation to help deliver lifesaving medicines aimed at tackling the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the country.
The service’s red postal vans, which makes thousands of daily journeys covering all of the country’s post offices based in some 600,000 or so villages, will be transporting medical equipment and drugs where they are most needed at a time when transport there is at a stand-still.
Since the country’s total lockdown and many industries, including hospitals, medical centres, pharmaceutical companies, laboratories and people on the whole left in the lurch, the postal service came to the fore in India’s ‘hour of need’.
Ashok Kumar Madan, executive director of the IDMA (Indian Drug Manufacturer’s Association), explained the problem that was faced: “We were facing a lot of difficulties.
“We usually rely on couriers to get our products out to customers, but, because of the lockdown, none of them were responding to us, probably because they didn’t have curfew passes, or delivery people to call on.
“Many of these products were essential medicines; such as for heart conditions and/or cancer.
With the postal service already in partnership with IDMA to prioritise medical deliveries in the state of Gujarat, he then got a call from Alok Ojha, the senior superintendent of the service in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Ojha was then offered the chance to repeat that service on a wider scale with Madan explaining: “We were looking for a solution and, with it being rendered an “essential service” by the government – which allows them to operate normally during the lockdown - the postal service have unhindered access to the whole country.
As word spread, more people began to call and ask for help.
Since the lockdown, far more companies and institutes have made similar requests, with the postal service used to deliver everything from batches of lifesaving drugs, N95 masks and ventilators, moving medicines and equipment between major states and cities – via the the red vans.
