A serpentine queue greeted Mayur Ghosh as he stepped into Chittaranjan Avenue post office on Friday morning to send a registered post.

“Normally it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes. But because of the two-day postal strike, so many people are waiting to use the postal services,” said the trader, standing behind 30-odd people.

At Bowbazar post office, it took Pravin Bajaj over an hour to deposit money in his recurring deposit account. “The strike has inconvenienced everyone,” he said.

The “indefinite strike” by the Postal Gramin Dak Sebak Employees’ Union and the Postal Employees’ Union that started on Wednesday was called off on Thursday night, but the backlog has thrown postal services out of gear.

“It’ll take some time for the operations to normalise. Work has piled up because of the strike but the number of workers remains the same,” said Suresh Jana, the senior post officer at General Post Office.

“Postal service is still an essential service and even a day’s strike has a huge impact. Not everyone can afford courier services,” said Radha Boral, waiting to send a money order to her daughter in Patna at Esplanade post office.

Nearly 6 lakh members of the two postal unions struck work demanding better work conditions and benefits. “Our pay structure, retirement benefits, pension and bonus are way below that of our colleagues in other departments,” said Pranab Das, a postal employee.