COVID-19: Despite odds, postal employees ensure services in Nashik

While citizens across the country are staying indoors amid the COVID-19 pandemic, postal department employees in Nashik are braving all the odds by working on the ground and delivering money, parcels, and other essential commodities to the citizens.

Postal services are proving to be a boon for the people amid the COVID-19 crisis in Nashik, Maharashtra.

Due to the postal services, people are able to get money from their accounts at their homes only and this is helping to maintain social distancing and prevent the spread of coronavirus.

"We can't say till when will this COVID-19 crisis continue but we cannot stop working. We are a part of essential services so we deliver parcels every day. Sometimes we do face difficulties in delivering as the roads are barricaded so we somehow manage to cross the way and deliver the parcels and people are also supporting us," said Sandesh Bagul, a postman.

Postman continues to deliver in areas which have been declared as hotspots while ensuring all the necessary precautions.

"This postman (Sandesh) comes here every day to deliver parcels and other things even amid the COVID-19 crisis. He is risking his life for us, we are really thankful to him," said a local.

The Aadhaar Based Payment Service (AEPS) of the Indian Postal Department has proved to be important for the people during the COVID-19 period. During the pandemic, special attention has been paid towards the implementation of this scheme and people have also appreciated it.

When people could not get out of the house during the lockdown, they adopted this service of the postal department and received money from their bank accounts while sitting at home.

This facility had such an impact that people are still connected to it and taking advantage of it as per the need.

In this series, the Postal Department has now gone a step further and tried to get the amount of Direct benefit transfers (DBT) to be given to the beneficiaries in government schemes in their accounts instead of the bank.