Barnala post office locked over server snag; residents suffer
BARNALA : Visitors to the city’s main post office in Barnala were in for a rude shock on Saturday. They were ‘greeted’ with a locked gate and a notice of, ‘System is out of work. Inconvenience regretted’.
The computers have been functioning only sporadically since the software of the system was upgraded to Core System Integration (CSI) on April 27. Ironically, the upgrade was meant to speed up operations and increase efficiency. Now, even the postal office authorities are clueless on when work will resume.
“Even my staff members could not draw their salaries on time due to the hiccup and the problems over server,” said sub- postmaster Kewal Singh. On why had they locked up the main gate, Singh said, “The problem with the software had been persistent and members of the public had been creating a ruckus and abusing our staff over the issue. Hence, we decided to lock the gate. Training of staff is also not complete.” He added that whenever the system was up and functioning, the staff attended to the customers.
A customer Jitesh Jindal said, “A speed post article despatched from Bhopal on April 27 was delivered to me today (Saturday), only after I raised the matter on twitter. Online tracking details have also not been updated since May 1.” Replying to Jindal, Punjab chief postmaster general had tweeted, “Due to the new system roll out in the entire Sangrur division, process of delivery/transaction is slowed down.”
A woman customer, Surjit Kaur, who is in her seventies said, “We were better off when the staff worked manually. Though queues were longer, but at least the wait was fruitful. Instead of locking up the gate, they should at least tell us the problem and the approximate time it will take to resolve the issue.” Another customer, Raj Kumar Goyal said, “It seems that the postal department has launched the upgrade without testing or preparation.”