The Bengal circle of the department of post has launched its road transport network in a bid to speed up its parcel delivery service.

Trucks were flagged off on Friday on three routes — Calcutta-Guwahati via Siliguri (1,093km), Calcutta-Patna via Dhanbad and Gaya (595km), and Calcutta-Bhubaneswar via Kharagpur (479km).

“We are putting emphasis on our parcel delivery business. This is a sunshine sector. Transactions are increasingly happening on e-commerce, so parcels need to be reached across long distances,” postal service board member (operations), Arundhaty Ghosh, said after flagging off the service.

“Even e-commerce companies, like Amazon, book parcels at our post offices. So long our delivery transportation system was dependant on airlines and railways. Though we are reaching the parcels to them on time, because of their limitations our deliveries are getting delayed. So for faster and secure delivery of parcels, we have started our own transportation by road.”

Except for experiments in the south on the Chennai-Bangalore and Bangalore-Mangalore routes, parcels are not delivered by road on long-haul routes, officials present at the launch said.

“Parcel business is our only sector growing substantially,” said chief post master general, Bengal circle, Gautam Bhattacharya. “But our problem is constraint of space in aircraft and trains.”

Earlier, the department would get a full bogey with a cage in which mail could be put and the cage locked. The railways used to consult the department to decide how long a train would stop at important junctions where mail would be loaded.

“In fact, the mail trains — such as the Kalka Mail — were named so because they carried mail. But now with changing priorities of the railways, all we are being offered is half a bogey with no cage. Airlines, too, are not in a position to carry heavier load. So mails are getting accumulated in transit at important hubs like Calcutta for reasons beyond our control. That is why the department thought of a dedicated road transport network.”

Growth in parcels has been particularly high last year, pointed out Amitabh Singh, post master general, Calcutta. “We are getting about 4,000 bookings for parcels a day from e-commerce outfits. The figure was about 1,200 two years back,” he said. Parcel business in the eastern region is getting a boost because of high requirement in the Northeast.

“With aspiration levels rising and internet being available on mobile phones, parcel business will grow in tier 2 cities as well,” felt Neeraj Kumar, post master general, mail management and business development, Bengal circle.