Post offices collect ‘additional fee’ on postal orders

Postal orders of Rs100 denomination are missing even at GPO

LAHORE: The Pakistan Post is collecting an additional departmental fee of Rs20 on every postal order citizens submit.

The cost of postal orders has been increased to almost double and people have to face difficulties as postal orders of higher denominations ie Rs50 and Rs100 are unavailable at most post offices across the province.

Most of the post offices offer postal orders of Rs20 denominations. Even in the other cities of the country including Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Quetta, the postal order of Rs100 is not available in post offices.

Due to the unavailability of postal orders of Rs100, people are forced to buy postal orders of smaller denominations ie Rs20 or Rs50 and hence have to pay additional Rs20 on each postal order.

Sources revealed that the postal cheques worth Rs50 in other post offices, including the General Postal Office are unavailable and only postal orders of Rs20 are available.

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If someone has to send a postal order of Rs400 with an application, he will have to pay Rs20 per postal order thus increasing the cost two-fold ie Rs800.

Sources added that due to the unavailability of postal orders of Rs100, people have to buy five postal orders of Rs20 and for that, one has to pay an additional Rs100.

Similarly, if one buys two postal orders of Rs50, with this, they have to spend 40 rupees on account of the extra Rs20 which is a financial burden on the people. They expressed outrage over the lack of a postal order, and there is no consideration of their concerns.

In this regard, Lahore GPO Chief Postmaster Zubaida Khanum said several requests have been sent to the printing department for Rs100 postal orders and the same would be made available to the public after they are received.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2019.