West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India along the Bay of Bengal. With over 91 million inhabitants (as of 2011), it is India’s fourth-most populous state. West Bengal is the thirteenth-largest Indian state, with an area of 88,752 km2 (34,267 sq mi). Part of the ethno-linguistic Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, it borders Bangladesh in the east, and Nepal and Bhutan in the north. It also borders the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim, and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata (Calcutta) the seventh-largest city in India, and center of the third-largest metropolitan area in the country. West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region, the Ganges delta, the Rarh region, and the coastal Sundarbans. The main ethnic group is the Bengalis, with Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority.
The Department of Posts (DoP), trading as India Post, is a government-operated postal system in India, which is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Communications. Generally called “the post office” in India, it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. Founded in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie who laid the foundation for the modern Indian postal service. Dalhousie introduced uniform postage rates (universal service) & passed the India Post office act 1854 which significantly improved upon Lord William Bentinck’s 1837 act which had introduced Post offices in India. It created the position Director General of post for the whole country .
It is involved in delivering mail (post), remitting money by money orders, accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes, providing life insurance cover under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) and providing retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc. The DoP also acts as an agent for Government of India in discharging other services for citizens such as old age pension payments and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) wage disbursement. With 155,015 post offices, India Post has the most widely distributed postal network in the world.
The country has been divided into 23 postal circles, each circle headed by a Chief Postmaster General. Each circle is divided into regions, headed by a Postmaster General and comprising field units known as Divisions. These divisions are further divided into subdivisions. In addition to the 23 circles, there is a base circle to provide postal services to the Armed Forces of India headed by a Director General. One of the highest post offices in the world is in Hikkim, Himachal Pradesh operated by India Post at a height of 14,567 ft (4,440 m).
