Shortening the postal address

Today, I was writing the address on an envelope to be sent to the Income Tax PAN services in Pune. The address runs into 6 lines and has more characters than twitter or SMS allows. I am sure this address must be receiving thousands of letters everyday. Why can't the Indian Post think of a way of shortening such popular addresses - something like tinyurl of the postal address?

This will save a lot of time for individuals, reduce errors and lead to customer delight! The post box service is one way of looking at it. But it is limited by resources (space available for post boxes) and also latency on part of the addressee. However, a service that shortens the postal address can be driven by an alpha numeric code and is virtually unlimited.

This can be monetised by charging either the sender or the receiver. The receiver may be issued this code at an annual fee or the sender may be asked to paste a premium postage stamp (marginal premium of Re.1) for a shortened address letter.

If tinyurl can do it to the web address, I am sure there is a way to do it for the postal address as well.

Comments

Pranav said…

Sahi hai! picking ideas from the digital space to be used in physical world....is a nice turn!

2:35 pm

What (not) to expect from a politician

The photo has no real significance to the subject being discussed :-) Off late, I have seen a lot of my friends venting their anguish against politicians. Many of them expected the politicians to behave more responsibly, discipline the public on dos & don'ts of COVID precautions, get national priorities right and basically change the society to which they belong and are elected representatives. I think this bunch has wrong expectations from the wrong group of people. Here is why - A politician's entire existence is centred around election victory. Winning an election is their Key Performance Indicator (KPI). A consistently losing politician who is not making any effort to come to power, is not even a politician. Acceptance from society, popularity and majoritarian view are the fundamental characteristics of a politician. They have to operate within the limits of these fundamentals to maintain their existence. Isn't that why we always refer to successful politicians a

How to change flat ownership in GHMC records

It's been close to a year since we bought a new flat in Hyderabad. It has been one hell of a learning exercise for the sheer amount of paper work and procedures it involved before, during or after the purchase. Buying a house in Hyderabad has been an exciting and taxing journey, so far. All through this journey, I had a desire to document my experiences so that it would help others who wished to be helped. But luck, laziness and life kept me away from this. However, I'll at least start now with an account of what needs to be done to change the ownership records in GHMC [Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation]. The first time it struck me that I need to do this is when I received a property tax notice addressed to the previous owner of the flat (we made a second hand purchase). All along I thought once I had registered with the land records department, the government would take care of updating all other records. I was so wrong! So, I rushed to the nearest Municipal Citizen

RSS - an answer to the caste discrimination

One of my old post on Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh drew a comment today. It posed a few question about the stand RSS takes on the issues of caste system in our contry. The reader also asked if RSS could be a possible solution. And this, my dear readers in the fuel for this post. Let me put forth some facts about the organisation called RSS right at the beginning. RSS is a social organisation. There is no formal registration and participation is completely voluntary. It is not a political, religious or profit making orgnisation. There are no posts, there are only responsibilities (in fact that what they are called). These facts make it clear that this is a place where entry and exit is pretty easy. There are no costs involved with either. Which means there is no-one who can tell you that he will get you registered with the RSS and do you a favour. RSS is for everyone. In my opinion it is a perfect place where caste ism cannot exist. There are no reservations for a certain community. T

Whatever...

Search This Blog