In a Bihar village, they wait for money-orders they’ll never get

The Khirma post office caters to the twin villages of Khirma and Pathra with a total population of around 5,500. The villages have a sizeable population that works in cities such as Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi and Ludhiana. As they struggle hard in distant cities, their families wait endlessly for the monthly money-order.

Harassed, about 100 of them filed a complaint against the postmaster,Badur Rahman in May this year. He has been suspended pending a departmental inquiry but there does not appear to be any chances of retrieving the money that he has usurped. Incidentally, he was also suspended three years ago following similar complaints but was reinstated after a few months.

Superintendent of Postal Services K.P. Singh said that they were still investigating the charges against Badur Rahman but since they were“not so serious, it was likely that he would be back in service. The charges levelled against him are of delaying the delivery of money order.”

Singh also admitted that such cases existed in other areas but it was difficult to control because, “even the smallest of persons in Bihar has political connections.”

But the poor villagers have none.

“It is difficult to send money in the first place,” said Shabir Ahmed who works as an embroidery craftsman in Delhi. “We used to send it for so longbut for the last five years we have stopped sending money-order. Whatever we sent never reached home.”

Many other families tell the same story. According to them, the value of money order that their village receives every month is to the tune of Rs 5 lakh.

“Once, I sent money order a fortnight before I was to visit my home,”recalls Mohammed Haider who has been living in Delhi’s Govindpuri forthe last 13 years. He said that when he reached his home, he realised that the money had not arrived. So he confronted the postmaster. “He kept on denying it initially but when I threatened him, he coughed up themoney in couple of hours.”

The post master’s modus operandi was simple. He would receive the money orders himself by forging thumb impressions. Then he would either keepthe entire amount or he would give out the money in instalments, using it for his own purposes.

“Most of the people living here are illiterate,” said Mohammed Younis, who himself has been a victim of the scam. “So we would just have to accept all this.”

Among the victims are widows who receive their husbands’ pensions. Take Mehrunnissa, for instance, whose husband Abdul Rauf died after working in the shipping board in Calcutta about 15 years ago. She does not even know the amount of pension that she is entitled to. “Sometimes, I would get Rs 400 and sometimes, Rs 700,” she says.

Mehrunnissa gets upset when she recalls how she, with a severe arthritis,had to be carried from place to place. “The post master would sometimes saythat he did have the money but not the receipt form or has the receipt form but not the money.” When he would finally give her the money after months of delay, he would deduct a sum from it. Mehrunnissa had to sell her jewellery for her treatment.

All the villagers have a complaint against the postmaster who also ran a fair-price shop. “The post office never used to be open, as he would operate from his home,” says Shabir Ahmed.

The postman, Raza Ahmed, took a cue from his boss. He believed that goingfrom house to house delivering letters was infra dig. “Do you think that I am a beggar going from house to house?” is his reported refrain. The resultwas that the village has never received any mail at home.

According local advocate Pavan Chowdhary, who petitioned on behalf of these villagers, this was common in areas like Samastipur, Begusarai, Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur and Madhubani. He said that although they had managed to get the postmaster suspended, it was probably not gorhi, Muzaffarpur and Madhubani.