PFor thousands of ‘Netizens’ who had merely heard about postal stamps, money-orders, aerogram, inland cards, telegram postal service from their grandparents, visiting the ongoing third State-Level Philatelic Exhibition – Jharpex: 2018 for them is a whole new experience. The event inaugurated by Legislative Assembly Speaker, Dinesh Oraon including other dignitaries here on November 2 at Palash Hall, Doranda divulged some fascinating facts about the largest postal network of the world keeping ‘Philatelic’ in the focal point.
Philately, which is not merely a hobby of collecting postal stamps but a mean to expand an individual’s knowledge base, creativity, concentration power, has its own fascination. Aptly termed as ‘King of hobbies and hobby of kings’ is one such leisure pursuit that peek in past, providing a tons of information about the glorious present and lot more.
The event especially being organised with an aim to educate students’ about the splendid journey of Indian Postal Department that started the service with Dakiya wala – Post Master and has now moved towards digitalisation strengthening its wide network, gave the young budding minds including other enthusiasts an opportunity to interact with a few renowned philatelists. Interestingly, the postal network of India is over 2.5 times bigger than the nationalised banks.
Amit Suri, an eminent philatelist who has come all the way from New Delhi to participate in the State Level Philatelic Exhibition said, “My hobby of collecting postal stamps has given me a distinct identity. So far, I have 24 gold medals in my kitty. I am the second generation of my family to choose postal stamp collection as a hobby. I had exhibited my collection at different postal stamp exhibitions in the country and abroad.”
Suri who is participating in the event as a jury-member further said, “My exhibition stall put up here shows the evolution of postal department from pre-stamp period till date. The world of postal stamps is full of excitement where the stamp collectors get to know about several issues which include politics, sports, international events and other major breakthrough incidents which hold a relevant place in history.”
Similarly, another stamp collector and judge of this event, Shakeel Ahmed from Odisha said, “For all those who have keen interest in postal stamps collection must try to procure other correspondence medium like postcards, telegrams, inland letters etc from philatelic bureau to add on to their collections.”
The State Level Exhibition has postal stamps collection from pre-independent era to iconic personalities including special covers, postal stamps of State’s jewels ranging from waterfalls, picturesque locations and much more. On the inaugural day, the dignitaries released two special poster covers — Maksim Cards on waterfalls of Jharkhand including a pictorial anthology of Bhagwan Birsa Munda’s birth place, Ulihatu Village and Carried Covers.
The legislative Assembly Speaker who himself is a philatelist shared his experience with the gathering, motivating the people to delve upon the activities taken up by the Postal Department in the recent years and the advancement of this prime communication network.
“I have lived in the era and understand the importance of Postal Department which has a glorious history in boosting the communication network here in India. With the changing time, it has too adopted the modern means but even then also postal stamps, post-cards have its own significance,” said Oraon on inaugural day.
In addition, Chief Post Master General (CPMG), Jharkhand Circle — Shashi Shalini Kujur said, “Annually 50-60 postal stamps are released along with information brochures, this itself shows its importance. After receiving lukewarm response at the first and second State level Philatelic exhibition organised at Dhanbad and Jamshedpur respectively, the overwhelming reaction of the public here in the Capital has boosted our temperament. Around 500 school students have enrolled themselves for participating in different activities like letter writing, postal stamp designing, quiz, philatelic workshop etc during this three-day affair.” The event will conclude on November 4.