The general post office at Bistupur in Jamshedpur on Friday and (right) people queue up in front of a speed post counter. Pictures by Animesh Sengupta

Couch potatoes of Jamshedpur, rejoice. The city will soon be the first in Jharkhand to offer its residents the comfort of booking the Speed Post service from home.

The express service, launched by India Post in 1986, so far did require customers to go to a postal office and sometimes even behind a serpentine queue.

Now, that is set to be history, at least where Jamshedpur residents are concerned. Residents will have to call up the post office to book the service, calling a postman or collecting agent on contract at home.

Such facility is not available in Ranchi, Dhanbad, Bokaro or any other towns.

Chief post master general K.V.S. Rajan said the service for now had been designed only for the steel city. “There are no immediate plans to introduce it in the state capital. It will require huge manpower to make the scheme effective in other cities,” he said.

“Our logistics is ready to provide the service. But manpower is a constraint. Apart from postmen, we are also trying to hire people on contractual basis, who will collect articles from the doorsteps of customers for delivery and issue them a receipt,” N. Sarkar, senior superintendent of the Bistupur-based General Post Office, told The Telegraph.

According to him, those availing the facility will not have to pay any extra charges. They will pay only the requisite Speed Post fee based on destination.

“A customer needs to just dial us to book the service. A postman will be there to collect the article. The service is expected to be launched by the end of this month,” said Sarkar.

Initially, the service will be confined to elite neighbourhoods such as Bistupur, Circuit House and Sonari, but more localities would soon join the network, depending on the availability of contractual employees, said the senior official.

The General Post Office is also trying to hire people from the JDS cadre (a rural wing of the postal department).

A bulk delivery scheme for corporate customers, launched in Jamshedpur and Ranchi last year, is also doing well.

Corporate houses such as Tata Steel, Lafarge and Adityapur industrial units avail the facility.