Siliguri, Nabadiganta & Durgapur to get parcel hubs

Kolkata: With the boom in parcel business, the West Bengal circle of the Department of Posts is coming up with three parcel hubs across the state with facilities of warehouse and conveyor belt. The hubs will come up at three locations- Siliguri, Nabadiganta (Kolkata) and Durgapur.

"Our parcel business has seen a significant rise last year and it is growing this year too. So we have laid emphasis on developing infrastructure for this growing ecommerce and parcel business," said Gautam Bhattacharya, Chief Postmaster General (West Bengal circle) that also includes Sikkim and Andaman and Nicobar Island.

The India Post is coming up with a comprehensive network of parcel delivery

across the country with 56 Level I hubs and 134 Level-II hubs.

The Level I hubs are meant for the bigger cities while the level II for the smaller cities. In the financial year 2018-19 (till February), India Post has earned a revenue of Rs 98.45 crores through its parcel business .

"Apart from railway and air connectivity we have recently introduced road transport for faster transshipment of parcels, particularly the e-commerce articles. The routes that have been introduced are Siliguri, Guwahati and Bhubaneshwar from Kolkata and vice versa. Six vehicles are presently running in these three routes," a senior official of the department said.

He pointed out space crunch in railways has been posing a major problem in transshipment in recent past. " We used to get a full bogey for e commerce but now we usually get half the bogie with the Railways going for other options in a bid to earn revenue which is nothing unnatural," he said adding that handling parcels at railway stations is difficult as train stops for very little time at stations.

The department is sending 1.5 tonnes of parcels in each of the vehicles.

Amitabh Singh, PMG Kolkata said that the department is planning to come up with some more routes in the next six months. "Hyderabad and Vishakapattanam are the two places which are very much in our radar," Singh said.

The West Bengal circle of the Department of Posts has started giving soft skill training to its employees for betterment of services.