Snail Mail Over Email

People living in some of the most inaccessible areas of India are enjoying an improved postal service – thanks to the combining of e-mail with traditional ‘snail mail’.

Post offices in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh will take a customer’s handwritten letter and computer scan it. Then the letter can be e-mailed to remote, high-altitude post-offices in this Himalayan region.

From there, the e-mails are printed out and then taken by hand to their destinations – many of which are located in almost inaccessible mountain areas such as the Lahaul, Spiti, Kinnaur and Pangi valleys.

At over 3,500 metres above sea level, some of them are the highest inhabited places on earth.

They remain cut off from the rest of the world for more than half the year due to heavy snowfall over the high passes – which makes it tough for the postal authorities to reach them.

“In small towns this tailor-made service can also be accessed by customers from their home or office via the internet, by buying pre-paid cards from post offices at a cheap 10 rupees (?0.12) per letter,” a top postal department official told the BBC.

BBC NEWS – E-mail and snail mail united