For a better connect with gen next, Kolkata’s GPO opens cafe

High-roofed hall with chandeliers and colourful interiors evokes the right ambience

The Department of Post has opened — for the first time in the country — a café within the premises of a post office to reach out to the younger generation.

Named Siuli (a popular trinket-shaped flower, white and saffron colour), the cafe, located in the historic and handsome General Post Office building in Kolkata, was inaugurated earlier this week in what used to serve as a philatelic ancillary shop.

“The café is not an ornamental one, it has parcel booking counters which are completely functional. The idea is to strengthen our ties with the current generation and this cafe is a step towards the betterment of their perception of us,” Niraj Kumar, Postmaster-General of Kolkata Region, told The Hindu.

“We noticed that more than 60% of our business comes from retail, where people come to the post office; while the rest comprises bulk, commercial orders involving big corporate customers. Therefore, it is important for us that people came to the post office,” Mr. Kumar elaborated on the department’s decision.

“So, we thought: why not have a nice place dedicated to parcel-booking, packaging, gift–packing, booking for same–day delivery in selected locations and also have a café there, so that the younger generation feels like coming to the post office. We didn’t buy new furniture. The old, original ones were refurbished and repainted. The decor is themed on postal history,” the Postmaster-General said.

Shreya Chatterjee, a geography teacher who had come to the GPO to courier a birthday gift to a friend living in Siliguri, said as she sipped Darjeeling tea in the cafe: “To book a parcel and then sit for a snack, that too in a big, high-roofed hall with chandeliers and colourful interiors done in green and red — what more can one ask for!”

The Department of Post appears to be holding its ground in spite of the mushrooming of private courier services. According to Mr. Kumar, the Kolkata Region of India Post delivered 46,000 parcels in February alone through its nodal delivery centres. Also in the same month, 306 tonnes of parcel were booked and 12 lakh Speed Post articles were delivered.