THE KHAKI CLADS ARE HISTORY. Review on DTDC Courier

I remember those olden days when a khaki uniformed cyclist would ride past my house dropping a sealed epistle or two in the letter box. At times he would ring the bell to deliver an infrequent parcel. But the heart thudding moment would be when he would announce in an ominous way the arrival of a telegram. Gradually the clan of postmen gave way to another bunch of cycle/bike/scooter riders who would come and take our signature along with the telephone/mobile number against our name and address on typed/handwritten sheets and deliver the parcels and letters with or without a friendly nod or smile. Yes, they are the courier boys. And they are not uniformed which I feel they should as a uniform always emanates a sense of belongingness to a particular organization.

It is interesting to note how the system of communication has developed over a period of time in our country. In ancient times the royal messengers would trot on foot/horseback from one area to the other loudly chanting the monarch’s dictates to the servile subjects. Their sing song voices would be accompanied by the sound of drum beats to catch the attention of the public. There would also be messengers who would deliver missives door to door. They would be more than often carrying a potli tied to a long stick and a bell to indicate their arrival.

During British period there was the system of Runners who ran from village to village, city to city, province to province to deliver missives. There are many sad narratives and IPTA songs describing the hard lives of these runners - about how they traveled day and night without rest passing through thick jungles, inaccessible paths, unscalable mountains and dangerous rivers on foot to provide services to the people. Consequently, it would take days and months for a letter to reach its destination.

In today’s jet age we expect the modes of communication to be of equally matching speed. Nowadays, we seldom post a letter. We like to courier it expecting our message to be received within the shortest span of time. But does that really happen always? Let me tell you a story in this context.

A young, village boy in his late teens arrives in the capital in the hope of earning a steady income. He has heard that in the city there are many easily available and lucrative avenues of earning a livelihood. He also wants to earn a few quick bucks. He puts up with his fellow villagers who have painted rosy pictures of urban life back at home. Guided by them he starts looking for a job. In the meanwhile, he does a few odd ones too for his survival in this monstrously busy metropolitan.

But soon he finds that the rosy pictures are only found on the pages of glossy books read by the educated ones. He is about to go back to his village disillusioned that he suddenly lands up with a job. The job is very simple. He will have to deliver letters and parcels door to door and take the signatures and contact numbers of the recipients on a sheet of paper. He happily agrees to do the job.

As days pass, he realizes the job, seemingly simple, is not actually so. Though he has a borrowed cycle to take him to the different parts of the city but it is not enough to win over the temperaments of Nature. The scorching sun of the summer, the muggy, sweaty months of the rainy season and the biting winter make his journey unendurable. At times he feels completely exhausted because of the long distances that he has to travel. At times the addressees behave badly. At times the addresses written are wrong or incomplete. At times the delivery points are difficult to find and sometimes not manned properly to receive the deliveries. In short, life in the city for a courier boy is not that attractive as it appears at the first glance.

One evening, during the closing hours of the day, the boy reaches an office complex to deliver a letter with a parcel. The complex is huge. His legs are aching due to constant cycling. At the gate he meets the guard who coincidentally belongs to his village. He welcomes the boy to rest for a while along side. The boy agrees to a short khaini session (Yes the boy has picked up this bad habit too!). Both sit and reminisce the good old days of the rustic life, their homes, the harvests, the festivals, the melas and so on and so forth. The boy in his nostalgic moments loses the count of time. Dusk deepens. He realizes he has to report back to his office. He takes out the letter and asks the guard about the whereabouts of the addressee. The guard proudly tells him that he knows the sahib for whom the letter and parcel are. The boy in his hurry to return, hands over the deliveries to the guard with a request that will he be kind enough to hand these over to the sahib. The guard agrees and keeps the deliveries with him.

The story may have had a happy ending but it is not to be so. In the follow on, the guard realizes it is too late in the day and takes the package home to deliver the next day whereupon he conveniently forgets all about the delivery. The sahib, in the meanwhile, starts following up for the packet with the courier company who promptly advises that the same has been delivered on time at the right address. The sahib refuses to have got the deliveries. What follows is a series of follow ups, telephone calls, e- mails and a strong letter to the higher ups of the company before the truth suddenly comes to light. The courier company looks up its delivery schedule, finds out the person who was in charge of delivering the goods that day, calls up and questions him till the beans are spilled. In the second round, the sahib takes the guard to task who tearfully apologizes. The lost letter and parcel are retrieved after much hassle and harangue.

While most of the story may be imaginary but the details of the mis-delivery is factual. The harassment and stress of not getting the important documents on time are very real. The name of the courier company is Desk To Desk Courier Company. Going by the name, a picture perfect facade of competency, punctuality and responsibility comes to mind which in reality is not evidently so. I am not judging them by one incident but sometimes one incident is good enough to summarize the general approach of a concern. Many a times, our acquaintances, friends and relatives complaint about the misdemeanors and slap shod behaviour ofthe courier boys. The question is why?Once a service is corporatised, isn’t it the duty of the company to see that the proposed services are sustainable or not? With reference to the aforementioned incident the questions that leap to mind are:

(1) What are the parameters of recruitment in these courier companies?

(2) Is there a system of induction training for the new recruitees to ingrain the importance of the job that they are about to handle and the sense of duty and responsibility commensurate with it?

(3) What sort of facilities/amenities is provided to these courier boys in terms of remuneration/perks considering the hardships that their job entails?

(4) What are the punitive/corrective measures adopted by the company in case of failure to provide the desired service?

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