The days of the money order (MO) service — in use in areas where modern and sophisticated gadget-driven services have not yet reached — are perhaps numbered with the Government finally gone for the formal announcement of doing away with it.
The Indian Postal Service’s 130-year-old MO service is going to be replaced with the modern mode of money sending like electronic money order (EMO) or instant money order (IMO). The move has raised a question about how people living in the country’s hilly and remote areas where the traditional MO service has remained in use, will adjust themselves to the change.
When asked about the MO system — formally closed by the Government from this financial year — how people living in remote villages of the hill State like Uttarakhand where many of the of villages are yet to be electrified, would avail such internet-driven service like EMO, Ramesh lal, in- charge of the money order department of the main Haldwani post office, maintained that the new mode of money delivery system like EMO is used to send the money first to the nearest sub- post office of a place or village and from there the money could be paid to the recipient by the official concerned.
“We have already switched over to the modern system like the EMO,” he said, adding that there is no problem in sending the money through the EMO.
“Rather, the recipient can receive the money in two days through the EMO, while it used to take at least a week or more than that to send money through the traditional MO,” he added.
To ensure speedy delivery of the money through EMO, mentioning of the area pin code is vital, added the official.
The EMO system may be quicker than the traditional MO, but the MO service used to have one special feature which EMO or IMO does not have. It used to have a small space allocated on the bottom of the MO application form for the customers to write a few words of good wishes to the senders.
“It was good. Now the EMO would be bereft of such warmth,” said Rakesh Shah, a resident of Haldwani.
However, in view of the mobile banking or the net banking being widely in use, replacing traditional MO with EMO is an imperative, he added.