HERITAGE POST OFFICE

Stamp on Cooch Behar Head Post Office

The stamp depicting the photograph of the heritage building of Cooch Behar Head Post Office is now available in that post office too. Though the stamp was released on 13 May of this year it was not available here till last week.

The Indian postal department had decided to release six special postal stamps of denomination of Rs 5 on six heritage post offices of India. The decision was adopted to mark the weeklong International Philatelic Exhibition 2011 that is to be held at Pragati Maidan in Delhi on 12-18 February 2011. These heritage post offices are : Cooch Behar HPO, Delhi GPO, Lucknow GPO, Nagpur GPO, Simla GPO and Udhagamandalam HPO. Accordingly the stamps have been released on 13 May.

Secretary of Cooch Behar Philatelic Association Mr Nirmalendu Chakraborty said though the building of the head post office of Darjeeling was a very old one it was not selected for the heritage post office status.

Mr Chakraborty said the Cooch Behar HPO was built in the regime of Maharaja Jitendra Narayan in 1921-1924. It is situated along Sunity Road at the central place of the heritage town. There are Chandan Dighi and MJN Hospital in its vicinity. The commemorative stamp was not available at the HPO till last week but from today it is available at the sales counter of the Cooch Behar Head Post Office, Mr Chakraborty said. 

PHOTO : The commemorative stamps on six heritage post offices of India. – Debashis Bhaumik