The under-construction post office building at Kushiapala village. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy

Kendrapara, Aug. 20: Residents of a remote area of the district have pooled in money to build a post office in their village.

The post office at Kushiapala village under Derabish block operated from a dilapidated house. As the post department did nothing to build a permanent post office building, the local residents made up their mind to construct it themselves after generating money through voluntary donation.

“The post office is still a vital means of communication with the outside world for us. With authorities doing nothing to repair the dilapidated post office, the local residents collected funds from each household. I donated Rs 3,000 towards the cause. Now the one-room post office building is complete and ready for use,” said sarpanch of Kushiapal Gram Panchayat Adhikari Golakh Bihar Das.

The village has a population of 2,000 people. Members of at least 50 families here are settled outside the state with some of them engaged as plumbers in the gulf countries.

Consequently, the post office helps deliver letters, money orders and Western Union money transfer, said Biswanath Behera, a retired state government employee.

“Everyone said they were willing to donate for the cause. Almost the entire village contributed towards the project. The 100sqft pucca house is almost complete. Plastering of the outer wall is only left to be done. Rs 1.5 lakh collected from the people was spent to construct the building. We hope the post office will be shifted to the new building shortly,” he said.

“There are 268 extra departmental branch post offices or grameen post offices across the district. These branches have no permanent buildings. In many villages, postmasters run these from their houses. In many villages, postmasters also operate from gram panchayat offices and schools. The authorities provide Rs 100 a month for the maintenance of these post offices. The village postmaster is engaged on a contractual basis with monthly retainer of Rs 6,000,” said superintendent of Kendrapara head post office Bijoy Kumar Pattnaik.

The rural post office at Kushiapala comes under the Kendrapara head post office.

“The department of posts is planning to better the infrastructure of grameen post offices. However, it is heartening to know that people have come forward to build a permanent structure for village post office in Kushiapala,” he said.