India Post
government-operated postal system in India
The Department of Posts, d/b/a India Post, is an Indian public sector postal system statutory body headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is an organisation under the Ministry of Communications. It is the most widely distributed postal system in the world and India is the country that has the largest number of post offices in the world with 164,999 post offices including 149,385 rural post offices and 15,614 urban post offices. It is involved in delivering mail (post), remitting money by money orders, accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes, providing life insurance coverage under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) and providing retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc.
Apart from delivering services to general public and corporates, India Post is also proud custodian of a rich heritage of postal buildings that echo the historical evolution and architectural grandeur of bygone eras. India Post has declared 44 heritage buildings so far.
Warren Hastings had taken initiative under East India Company to start the Postal Service in the country in 1766. It was initially established under the name "Company Mail". It was later modified into a service under the Crown in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie. Dalhousie introduced uniform postage rates (universal service) and helped to pass the India Post Office Act 1854 which significantly improved upon 1837 Post Office act which had introduced regular post offices in India.
The public source identifies “India Post” as government-operated postal system in India. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around India, Post and government-operated.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “India Post”, the useful work is to connect “government-operated postal system in India” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3519720. VIAF identifies the subject as 169040803. The Library of Congress control number is n88001082. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1766, 1854 and 1837.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “India Post”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow India Post primary sources, India Post archive and India research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “India Post”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “India Post” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.