The Hindu : International / India & World : 'Illegal issuance of stamps, a major concern'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 01, 2004

International

International - India & World

'Illegal issuance of stamps, a major concern'

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, AUG. 31. The World Association for the Development of Philately, at a meeting held here under India's chairmanship, discussed issues likely to come up at the next Congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), scheduled to take place in Bucharest from September 15.

Vijay Bhushan, Secretary to the Government of India as also Director-General Posts and Chairman of the Postal Services Board, who left here today after presiding over the meeting, said an agenda issue for the prospective UPU Congress was how to combat the illegal issuance of stamps. Noting that the problem was of international concern in relation to some of the former Soviet Republics, Mr. Bhushan said that a distinction had to be drawn between the "forgery of stamps" and the "production of unauthorised stamps."

Besides being the Chairman of the World Philately Association, India is also now the Chairman of the Quality Service Fund, an autonomous trust that works for the UPU. Mr. Bhushan said that a worldwide survey had projected a further fall in the usage of physical mail and a spurt in the usage of electronic mail by 2005. The usage of telephones, as a mode of communication, might remain at the same level as now. The trends in India were in line with the global survey, he indicated.

Noting that the service of electronic post (e-post) had already been introduced at post offices at 650 district headquarters across India, Mr. Bhushan said that computerisation of counter-level services in post offices and that of mail-sorting were also issues of interest to the UPU.

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