NFPE Odisha writes to the Chief Minister, Odisha with appeal to appraise the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India for complete lockdown of all Post and RMS Offices to contain spread of Novel Corona Virus

No. NFPE – ODI / 04 / 2020

Dated at Bhubaneswar the 22^nd  March, 2020

To

Sj. Naveen Patnaik

Hon’ble Chief Minister of Odisha

Lok Seva Bhawan, Bhubaneswar – 751 001

Sub:-  Appeal to appraise the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India for complete lockdown of all Post and RMS Offices to contain spread of Novel Corona Virus.  

Respected Sir,

On behalf of the entirety of postal employees and workers of Odisha Circle, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for your timely action in taking all suitable measures to contain the spread of COVID-19. We highly appreciate your support to the appeal of the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India in connection with the JANATA CURFEW from 7 AM to 9 PM on 22.03.2020 and the specific order of the State Govt. for complete lockdown in the districts of Khurda, Cuttack, Ganjam, Kendrapada and Angul besides the towns of Bhubaneswar, Puri,  Rourkela, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Balasore, Jajpur Road, Jajpur town and Bhadrak  from 7 am on 22.03.2020 to 9 PM on 29.03.2020 which have helped a lot in breaking chain of contamination of COVID-19.

Sir, though the postal employees and workers in Odisha are well aware of your instructions to the State Administration and Police to take tough action on anyone found violating this and risking their lives, their family members and people of the State, we have no other alternative but to come to office even during the above lockdown period since the Central Govt. has declared postal services as an essential service and thus not yet ordered for closure of post offices.

It is needless to intimate that as many as 25000 postal employees working in 8172 post offices across the state of Odisha do interact with hundreds of customers daily in each post office at the counters and handle lakhs of mails coming from various sources including foreign mails both in Post and RMS Offices in a hazardous condition and now in the present scenario they are quite vulnerable to the Novel Corona Virus. This is the condition of 5 lakh postal employees and workers working in 1.55 lakh post offices across the country interacting with lakhs of customers and handling crores of domestic, national and international mails with dust and unknown viruses. As a result, these offices, if not locked down may become the maternity home for COVID-19 and the sincere efforts taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 by the Govt. of Odisha may not be fruitful in real sense.

Under the circumstances, we would like to sincerely appeal you Sir to kindly appraise the Central Govt. for complete lockdown of Post and RMS offices till restoration of normalcy or otherwise to contain spread of COVID-19.

Expecting your kind response and early action Sir.

With regards.

Yours faithfully,

(Bruhaspati Samal)

Chairman