On Women's Day, India gets first all-female post office

The government opened the country's first all-women post office in New Delhi and announced plans to open more such branches completely operated by women employees.

"In coming days, I believe there will be more all-women post offices across country for convenience of women," Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal said.

While inaugurating first 'All Women Post office' in the country on the eve of International Women's Day, he said the new post office branch will be completely operated by women employees and provide all facilities that are available at any other post offices.

"This is first office in the country where all employees will be women. The government is looking into problem faced by woman and this is just a symbolic step," Sibal said.

In the Union Budget government announced to set up an all-women bank by October-end.

P Gopinath, secretary, department of posts, said the department has plans to have one such post office in every metro cities and subsequently include all the large towns particularly where there are lot of working women.

"There is different comfort level when women interact among themselves. Keeping all this in mind we will open post offices in places where there are large number of women. We have identified Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Bangalore to start with," she said.

Gopinath added that the department will open more women post offices in old Delhi area within fortnight.

Image: Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal