MAIL SERVICES

            Mail Services being the primary service of the Department, our mission is to provide high quality mail, parcel and related services in India and throughout the world.

               Inward and Outward foreign surface mails are dealt with by Foreign Post Office and Inward and Outward foreign air mails are processed by the Airport Sorting Office. The Foreign Post Office and Airport Sorting Office of Tamilnadu Circle are located in Chennai. 

               The present postal system in Tamilnadu has its origin in the days of the East India Company. What started as a scheme to convey the mails of the Company and its servants in Madras, has now grown into a mammoth system handling mails upto a volume of 80 lakhs per day, approximately. 

               The first post office was established on 01-06-1786 in Fort St George, which has now grown into Chennai GPO.
 
                Keeping up with the phenomenal development of the postal network in the country, Tamilnadu Postal Circle today has a vast network of 12180 post offices reaching the nooks and corners of Tamilnadu and Pondicherry. Mails are transported over a length of more than one lakh kilometres per day by rail, road and waterways.
 
                Consistent with the technological advancements, mail services today are aided by computerisation and mechanisation. Large volumes of mail are efficiently handled by Automatic Mail Processing Centres and the transit of mails is also closely monitored by the computerised mail offices.  

                Various types of mail services are available viz. Letter mail, Parcel mail, Registered post, Insured post and Value Payable post.

                 Postal articles are classified into two broad categories as First Class Mails and Second Class Mails.

                   First Class Mails are given air transmission within India, wherever such air conveyance is available.  The delivery of First Class Mails is expedited thus, without collection of any extra charges from the public.

                   Second Class Mails are air-lifted, only if they are marked for air transmission on collection of the requisite air surcharges from the sender.