The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bdnews24.com, Dhaka

The practice of posting hand-written letters has eroded so fast that just five percent of letters dispatched these days can be categorised as 'personal' compared to about 95 percent, or the bulk of postal correspondence, just five years ago, the director general of Bangladesh Post Office told bdnews24.com.

"Five years ago, the postal department used to handle about 21 crore letters annually, that figure dropped to about 16 crore in 2007," said post office chief Mobasherur Rahman.

Forty year-old businessman Masudur Rahman illustrates why: "I used to write letters to everyone-my parents, children, friends-well, now I have my cellphone for calling or sending an SMS at any time, my old habit of letter writing has been forgotten."

University student Mohibub Zaman adds that instant messaging services like googletalk and social networking sites such as Facebook don't leave any space for letter-writing these days.

Khandakar Sakhawat Ali, a teacher at a private university, said: "Communication media have changed overnight due to technological leaps. E-mail, and computer archiving have made preserving the correspondence easy too."

Post office director general Mobasherur Rahman said the postal department has initiated handwriting competitions for children, so that they retain the practice of writing letters and diaries in this electronic age.

GPO officials say a total of 9,800 post offices in the country employs around 7,500 staff and officers, but about 1,700 postman and billing clerk positions still lay vacant due to failures in recruitment.

However, no new post offices have been built in the last three years, they added, while many of the existing ones see less and less activity.

The counters at Dhaka's General Post Office remain almost deserted through the day, with few people buying envelopes, stamps or posting letters these days.

Tapashi Barua, who mans the enquiry counter of the capital's main post office, said she had been working at the GPO for 28 years. "These days, I hardly find a face before me booth making a query."

Poet Mahadev Saha told bdnews24.com: "A letter is a very intimate and passionate subject for me. Many of my poems mention letters."

"Now we don't want to write to or even meet people; the mobile phone suffices, you see."

"But let me tell you, a letter from 'a special somebody' still moves me and inspires me to see that person."