Government launches toll-free number for registering postal complaints

The government on Monday launched a toll-free number 1924 to register postal complaints -- a month after introducing ‘Twitter Seva’ for redress of telecom and postal grievances.

“Prime Minister has asked all departments to set up and strengthen public grievances redressal system. Moving on these lines, we started Twitter Seva on August 2, and now we have issued a toll-free number to address postal complaints,” communications minister Manoj Sinha said after inaugurating the service.

The service will be operational initially for 12 hours on working days between 0800 hrs to 2000 hrs.

Sinha said the complaints will be addressed in 24 hours unless they are related to policy matters.

“The service has been started initially in three languages -- Hindi, English, Malayalam and gradually we will start services in all scheduled languages,” he added.

He said the department of posts (DoP) is the government’s eighth largest department in terms of number of complaints received.

“We have been receiving average of 100 complaints in a day from across the country on Twitter Sewa and the resolution status is 97% till date,” Sinha said.

The DoP will set up a nodal officer in all postal circles who will handle public complaints.

“In three months we will start providing services in all languages on India Posts helpline number. Meanwhile, we will direct calls received in any other language to the concerned circle. If required, we will also expand operating hours from 12 to 24,” DoP Secretary BV Sudhakar said.

The complaints received on the toll free number would be registered in Computerised Customer Care (CCC) Centre portal by the operators at the Dak Bhawan and the 11 digits ticket number would be provided to the complainants.

If the complaint is already registered, the complainant would be informed about the status as viewed in CCC portal.