Something I discovered about goverment postal services.

I have become pound wise :). These days I surely check for alternates before I jump into anything expensive. Recently I had to send a courier to Mauritius as always I was checking for lazy options to get it done... after calling up half the courier people in R.A.Puram I made a trip to the R.A.Puram Post office. You know the speed post to Mauritius costed me about Rs.460/- (12 gms) as agaist Rs.1600/- quoted by private couriers.

My colleague and I discussed why private is so expensive when compared to government. And we concluded private has a lot of facility like tracking document delivery, picking up from the venue and a lot of advertisement on why they are the best. But when I came back and checked the net, I was surprise there is an option in http://www.indiapost.gov.in/ which will help you track status of Speed Post. But the excitement din't last long becasue after entering my tracking code it showed a message saying no information on this tracking code available. But there was a phone number which was available to call up and ask the delivery status 044-22313282 (for international) and 040-23463922 (within India - phone number for other metros are also available). Which I called and was told my document had reached the destination.

Private companies promote even little things to market them. I think what government lacks is, one has search far and wide to find facilities. It would really help if information such as this are posted on the counter or printed along with the counter foil offered when we use their services.