The Podanur Post Office in Coimbatore.- Photo: S. Siva Saravanan.
Nearly 150 years ago, the Podanur Railway Junction was a gateway for the British who wanted to go to places near Coimbatore.
Soon, a building came up near the junction, which served as a guest house, and had a stable for the horses of the soldiers.
Though the exact details are not available, this building later had a mail office and after that it became a post office.
Apart
from the railway junction, Podanur had a British settlement. Before and
after independence, the post office handled huge volume of mails
between the British settlements in the country and also foreign mail.
Some
of the old documents, stamping devices and a telegraph device with a
golden handle that were at the post office have all gone to postal
museums, say officials in the department.
According
to Postmaster General for Western Region Manju P. Pillai, the oldest
post office in Coimbatore is the Podanur post office, which is
functioning since 1886.
It has been renovated two or three times after that. The department will study if it could bring out a special cover on it.
L.
Suresh Babu, Post Master, Podanur, says the basic structure of the
4,000 sq.ft building (located on a half acre plot) has not been altered
and only the interiors were renovated.
The post
office was an exchange point (serving parts of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh
and areas now in Erode and Tirupur districts, apart from Coimbatore) and
had mail runners too, who used to carry mails to other post offices.
Even now, this post office has the largest jurisdiction (nearly seven km radius).
The second post office that came up in the city was on Lawley Road.
Source: The Hindu
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