History of Indian Post
Indian post being one of the oldest when just over one hundred and fifty years ago, the Post Office in the Province of Sindh, (then in British India), made postal history in Asia! India became the first country in the continent to issue postage stamps!
The first adhesive stamps of India issued on 1st July 1852 came to be known as “Scinde Dawks”, as they were issued in the Province of Sindh . “Scinde” was how the British spelt the province of Sindh and “Dawk” is the anglicized spelling of the Hindustani word “Dak” or Post. And so, to this day, India ’s first stamps are referred to simply as The Scinde Dawks!
A year earlier Sir Bartle Frere had replaced the postal runners with a network of horses and camels, improving communications in the Indus river valley to serve the military and commercial needs of the British East India Company.
One hundred and fifty years after the postal services came to the Asian continent, the India postal system with 1,55,618 post offices and over 5,66,000 employees working in unison, is considered the largest postal network in the world. India’s postal system was initially based on the model that the British left behind. But, the British model was designed essentially to transmit administrative orders. The Indian system broadened the vision of the postal system to reach the entire population of the country. This includes such varied terrain as the arid deserts of Rajasthan and Kutch to the icy reaches of Ladakh and the North-east.
The Indian postal system also boasts of postal code area “172114” in Sikkim, which – at 15,500 feet (more than 4700 meters approx.) – is the highest post office in the world!