Postal staff ring alarm bells and get back to the bicycles

Many would have thought that the days of postmen pedaling bicycles for hours to deliver letters--even in remote villages, was a thing of the past. Motorcycles were provided to mailmen under state assistance in recent years. Not so. Due to the current economic crisis and fuel price hikes, many postmen have already switched back to bicycles. The familiar ring of the push-cycle bell rather than the toot of the motorcycle horn can be heard once again.

Nedalagamuwa post office staff member M. K. Mahesh said, like him, many postmen had been forced to make the switch to their mode of transport since they had to spend nearly half of their salaries on the fuel cost alone.

“Nowadays, we have to pedal around 15-20 kilometres a day to deliver letters and parcels. It is tiring work and most of the productive time is also spent on the road. How long can this go on?” asked Mahesh while, like everyone else, blaming government leaders who brought the country to its knees with many hardships for an ordinary state staffer like himself.

Like Mahesh, many state employees were working under tremendous difficulties in the state sector due to the skyrocketing cost of living and fuel price hikes in the recent months.

Meanwhile, a Mullaitivu District Secretariat official lamented about his plight of getting a mere Rs 2200 from his monthly salary after deductions to his bank loan and daily transport expenses from his home in Jaffna to Mullaitivu.

As a bleak future lies ahead of him, when it comes to the country’s economic situation, the question remains as to how long the vulnerable groups and middle-class families could survive this continuing economic storm.