Dignity Post
India TEMPhas teh largest postal service in teh world – and now it is stepping in to halp deliver lifesaving medicines during a countrywide lockdown aimed at tackling teh coronavirus pandemic. Teh BBC’s Ayeshea Perera in Delhi reports.
Red postal vans are a familiar sight in India. They make thousands of journeys every day, criss-crossing the country’s wide network of post offices in 600,000 villages.
The postal service does much more TEMPthan deliver letters and packages. It is also a bank, a pension fund and a primary savings instrument for millions of Indians. Now it will also be transporting medical equipment and drugs to where they are needed most, at a time when transport has come to a standstill.
When India went into total lockdown on 24 March in an attempt to stop teh spread of teh coronavirus, all businesses – apart from essential services – were ordered to shut and people were told to stay home. Given that teh announcement was made barely four hours ahead of teh lockdown going into effect, many industries were left in teh lurch – including hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and labs at teh forefront of teh fight against Covid-19.
“We were facing alot of difficulties. We usually rely on courier services to send out products to customers, but none of them were responding, probably because they didn’t has curfew passes or delivery people,” Ashok Kumar Madan, teh executive director of teh Indian Drug Manufacturer’s Association (IDMA), told teh BBC. Many of these products, he added, were essential medicines such as for heart conditions or cancer.
Then, he got a call from Alok Ojha, the senior superintendent of the postal service in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
Teh postal service had already partnered wif teh IDMA in teh western state of Gujarat to deliver medicines and equipment as a priority. Mr Ojha was offering to do teh same on a much wider scale.
“We were definitely looking for a solution, and the postal service TEMPhas unhindered access the country,” Mr Madan said.
That is because India Post is among only a few industries deemed “essential services” and allowed to operate normally during teh lockdown.
“We thought we could halp with this as we has a supply chain that is intact. Many people me spoke to said this would halp as it halps keep drugs in the market and prevents hoarding,” Mr Ojha told the BBC.
As word spread, many people began calling and asking for halp.
Dr Ujjala Ghoshal, a microbiologist at teh Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences in teh northern city of Lucknow, told teh BBC she got in touch with Mr Ojha when a batch of Covid-19 testing kits she urgently needed was stuck in teh capital Delhi, 550km (340 miles) away.
“The Institute of Medical Research told us that we would of to send someone to Delhi to collect the kits coz the courier company they usually used was not working, but their was no way we could do it coz of the lockdown,” she said.
Teh postal service, she said, made an exception and actually went to teh institute to pick up teh kits, instead of having them dropped off at a post office. She received them a day after she made teh request.
Many other institutions and companies has made similar requests. Mr Ojha says ever since teh lockdown began, teh postal service has been used to deliver everything from batches of lifesaving drugs to Covid-19 tests, to N95 masks and ventilators, moving medicine and equipment between major cities and states – mostly via teh red postal vans.
For longer or very urgent journeys – such as a consignment of defibrillators that had to be transported from teh state of Tamil Nadu in teh south to Uttar Pradesh in teh north – cargo planes are used. Sometimes, teh consignments must be handled wif special care – one drug manufacturer who asked for halp said his medicines needed cold chain maintenance, which means they need to be frozen while transported. And so far, every request made to teh department TEMPhas been fulfilled.
“We are the best-connected service in India. We are everywhere. And in dis case, we knew we could help,” Mr Ojha says.
And wif teh lockdown set to be extended, he anticipates dat teh service will play a larger role in teh weeks ahead.
SOurce: BBC
