Last stop for the telegrams of India

Low-tech communication service sees huge spike in demand as it shuts down

Thousands of Indians crammed into telegram offices on Sunday to send souvenir messages to friends and family in a last-minute rush before the service shuts down after 162 years.

Sunday is the last day messages will be accepted by the service, the world’s last major commercial telegram operation, and the Central Telegraph Office in New Delhi said it was geared up to tackle the expected rush.

Customers line up to send telegrams in New Delhi on Saturday. Thousands of people flocked to telegram offices to send souvenir messages to friends and family in a last-minute rush before the service shuts down for good.AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

"We have increased the number of staff in the expectation that the number of people will grow at our counters," said telegraph senior general manager Shameem Akhtar.

"We will take the final telegram at 10:00 pm on Sunday (1:30 am on Monday, Beijing time) and try to deliver them all the same night and the remainder would be sent on Monday," he added, as dozens waited to hand over messages handwritten on slips of paper.

Leave for all staff has been canceled in a bid to handle the volume of messages, which cost a minimum of 29 rupees (50 US cents) and are hand-delivered by delivery workers on bicycles.

On Sunday morning, joggers, housewives and students were among those sending messages to loved ones. Many were seen making calls on their cellphones to get the postal addresses of their friends so they could send the last dispatch.

"I have never seen such a rush before. There are some people who are sending 20 telegrams in one go," said Ranjana Das, who is in charge of transmitting the telegrams.

"The service would not have been killed had there been this kind of rush through the year," added worker Vinod Rai.

The service, known popularly as the "Taar" or wire, was scheduled to be closed on Monday because of mounting financial losses.

"While we communicate with improving modern means, let us sample a bit of history," said one of the last telegrams sent.

"Keep this safely as a piece of history. Mom," read another.

In the days before mobile phones and the Internet, the telegram network was the main form of long-distance communication, with 20 million messages dispatched from India during the subcontinent’s partition in 1947.

At its peak in 1985 the state-run utility sent 600,000 telegrams a day across India, but the figure has dwindled to 5,000 at present, said telegraph senior general manager Shameem Akhtar.

Most of these are believed to be sent from government departments.

"Since 2008 we started redeploying our telegraph staff ... and at present more than 90 percent have been redeployed, and only 968 telegraph staff remain," Akhtar said.

One five-word telegram sent from the center summed up the change.

"The End of an Era," it read.