KARACHI: The federal government has shut down more than a dozen post offices across the city in line with its cost-cutting measures as the facilities were being run under “heavy loss”, officials and sources said.

A notification issued rece­ntly by the Karachi postmaster general came up with the announcement of the closure of 15 post offices in different city districts “with immediate effect”.

The Pakistan Post has been operating over 250 post offices across the metropolis, and some of the 15 facilities shut down also include those which offered services at night-time.

According to the notification, five post offices have been closed in district West, three in Central, six in East and one post office in district West.

City’s postmaster general claims decision will not affect services and operations of Pakistan Post

The 15 post offices which have been shut down include Shershah Colony Post Office, Lea Quarter Post Office, Beach Luxury Post Office, Beach Luxury Hotel Night Post Office, JPMC Night Post Office, Mominabad Night Post Office, Bahria Town Night Post Office, Samanabad Night Post Office, Azam Basti Post Office, Akhtar Colony Post Office, Qayyumabad Post Office, Qayyumabad Night Post Office, KATI Post Office, KATI Night Post Office and Islamic Center Post Office.

‘Move won’t cost any job’

Karachi Postmaster General Maqsood Ahmed believed that the decision would not affect the services and operations of the Pakistan Post in the city, neither would it cost jobs to dozens of its workers associated with these 15 offices.

All the closed post offices were offering services in the rented spaces like other facilities in the city, he added.

“All our employees in grades 1 to 10 of these closed post offices will be reassigned to other post offices based on their qualifications and skills,” he said.

He added that the closed post offices were not handling larger volume of postal operations and most of them were operating as “non-delivery” facilities.

The “non-delivery” post offices are those which only book mails and provide other services of business apart from delivery of articles.

‘A damaging move’

The decision came as a “shock” for the National Organisation of Postal Employees, the CBA of the Pakistan Post workers, which called it a “damaging move” for the already falling repute of the organisation.

CBA’s Ghayas Alam said that with more than 4,000 employees across the city and over 250 post offices in the metropolis, the Pakistan Post had been unable to exploit the true potential of the business capital and was running the operations with negative approach.

“Secondly, the postal operations are also seen as welfare services as well, not solely as commercial one,” he said, adding: “This is true that the move will not affect the employees of those 15 post offices but it will definitely affect the quality services to Karachiites.”

“We don’t see it as a wise move. The authorities should look for alternative streams of revenue generation instead of shrinking the scope and quality of the services. It would undermine the Pakistan Post’s repute and image,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 21th, 2024