The soaring mercury is set to trouble those campaigning
door-to-door in both urban and rural areas. At such a time, the postal
department is set to give some relief to political parties with a novel method.
According to a new scheme, the department will deliver pamphlets of candidates
in their chosen area through Direct Post.
The director of postal services for the Allahabad
While social media has limited access in rural
areas and there are limits enforced by operators on text messages on mobile
phones, direct post may be the best choice for candidates campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections.
Under the scheme, candidates and parties can
hand over election pamphlets to the post office and a postman will deliver them
to all the houses in the area specified by them. The cost is just Rs 1.5 per
pamphlet but there should be at least 1,000 of these for a package.
The director further said that with increasing
commercial activity, the need for direct advertising of products and services is
growing.
Direct Post is the unaddressed component of
Direct Mail and would comprise unaddressed postal articles like letters, cards,
brochures, questionnaires, pamphlets, samples, promotional items like CDs,
coupons, posters, or any other form of printed communication not prohibited by
the Indian Post Office Act, 1898, or Indian Post Office Rules, 1933.
For local distribution, India Post would charge
Rs 1.5 per article for the first 20 grams and Rs.2 per article for distribution
anywhere in the country. However, for every additional 20 grams or less, in
both local and inter-city cases, Rs 1 extra would be charged, Yadav added.
Source : Times of india
