Rural Post offices in Chincholi struggle without basic facilities

CH NEWS, KALABURAGI Several rural branch post offices in Chincholi taluk of district are struggling with a lack of basic infrastructure, affecting the convenience of customers who depend on postal services.The branch post office at Ainolli village, which is more than a century old, is functioning in the corridor of an old house without its own building or adequate facilities for customers. The situation at several other branch post offices across the taluk is also reported to be poor, with little attention being paid to their infrastructure needs. Chincholi taluk has five sub-post offices located at Nidagunda, Sulepeth, Chimmanchod, Chincholi and Chandapur. While the Chincholi sub-post office has had its own building for many years and the Sulepeth office has also been functioning in its own building for the past few years, rented premises remain the only option in other locations. At Ainoli, the branch post office operates in the corridor of an old house, where a BPM and a Gramin Dak Sevak provide services.
The Ainolli branch post office has 976 savings accounts, including 256 Recurring Deposit (RD) accounts and 171 Sukanya Samriddhi accounts, besides more than 40 insurance accounts. We visit people's homes and provide services at their doorsteps. The response and cooperation from villagers have been good, said Ainolli BPM Abhishek Chavan. Residents have also urged the postal department to establish a sub-post office at Kunchavaram, an important village and Gram Panchayat headquarters in Chincholi taluk. Located around 30 km from Chincholi town and close to the Telangana border, Kunchavaram serves as an important centre for surrounding settlements. Establishing a sub-post office there would benefit people from 21 nearby inhabited areas, reducing the distance they need to travel to access postal services. Residents point out that no sub-post office in the taluk is located at such a distance of around 30 km from Chincholi. They have appealed to the postal department to sanction a sub-post office at Kunchavaram to improve access to postal and related banking services for people living in the border region.