People queue up to bid farewell to telegram service

Over 3,500 people turned up at telegraph centres in the Capital which have almost been forgotten in recent years to send a message to their loved ones during the last week of the 160-year-old telegram service.

New Delhi: Over 3,500 people, many of them first timers, turned up at telegraph centres in the Capital which have almost been forgotten in recent years to send a message to their loved ones during the last week of the 160-year-old telegram service.

"This is the first time I am sending a telegram. It is for my 96-year-old grandfather who lives in a village near Trichy," Anand Sathiyaseelan, a lawyer by profession, said. Sathiyaseelan`s grandfather Karuppiah resides in Vadamalaipatti village near Trichy and still has with him a copy of most of the telegrams that he had received during his lifetime. "I remember to have sent my first telegram in 1934 from Ceylon to my parents in the same village. That time people heavily relied on telegrams. I am very sad to see end of this service which served as an important means of instant communication. At that time there were no phones," Karuppiah said on phone. A manager in a real estate firm Vikas Arvind said he was sending greetings to his parents in Bareily. "This I hope they will keep it as a memoir as well," Arvind said. Talking about interest of people, Chief Telegraph Master at Centre Telegraph Office (CTO), R D Ram said, "From July 8, we have seen general public turning up. Till Saturday, 3,402 telegrams were booked by CTO with 1,326 booking alone done on Friday. Till afternoon we have had around 400 bookings." Delhi had four centres for booking telegrams which include CTO at Janpath and Departmental Telegraph offices at Kashmiri Gate, Janakpuri and Delhi Cantonment. Sub Divisional Engineer (Operations) at Central Telegraph Office, Kiran Pal recalled that there were around 50 telegram centres in Delhi around five to six years back that were scaled down to four at present. "Services at Janakpuri office were closed yesterday. Three centres are open today. We have learnt that people are turning up at Kashmiri Gate and Delhi Cantonment offices as well. On Saturday 165 telegrams were booked as Kashmiri Gate office. Response has been low at Delhi Cantonment centre," Pal said. PTI