At a time when Internet and e-mail have touched every nook and corner of the country the revival of dying pastime of writing letters is surprising, especially as Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is getting over 2 lakh letters per month since Narendra Modi took over. This new trend can be seen as a desire of the people to connect with the Prime Minister who promises them corruption-free responsive governance. While this could be an indicator of Modi’s popularity but it has kept the postal authorities on toes. The rush of letters has prompted the postal authorities to go for more staff to handle the flow. Before Modi took over, the PMO used to receive 5,000 to 10,000 letters per month during Manmohan Singh’s tenure. The figure has now crossed one lakh. On an average Department of Post used to receive 10,000 letters but in July and August the figure touched 1.26 lakh. The number further shot up to around 2.7 lakh in September during Modi’s birthday and the Kashmir floods. All these letters are sorted out and scanned for security purposes. Bundles are made and mechanical delivery takes the sorted out letters to PMO where these are supervised by a team of officials who go through each letter before it is forwarded to PMO. During his poll campaign, Modi had used crowd sourcing as an important medium to connect with a large number of people. Even the BJP manifesto for Lok Sabha elections was crowd-sourced and before holding rallies in any city, Modi used to ask people about issues they would like him to touch upon. This also helped his campaign team to get the pulse of the people and zero in on election issues that mattered. This is an effort by the PM to connect with youngsters and give them a platform to showcase their innovative zeal and also enable them to leave an imprint on India’s history. The message is simple, that your skill, your creativity and your ideas become India’s pride and it gives each and every citizen of the country an opportunity to creatively engage with various government departments. No doubt the recent trend may have increased the burden of Department of Posts personnel but the trend would surely revive the art of letter writing among people besides Postal Department would also get a new lease of life in terms of revenue and activities.
