ONCE a symbol of trust and connection, the post office was at the heart of every town, rural union and household memory. For generations, it carried more than letters; it carried emotions, news and the lifelines of communication. But with the advance of digital technology, postal systems worldwide faced a reckoning. The rise of mobile phones, emails, e-commerce and mobile financial services transformed how people exchanged messages and money. Many countries adapted by turning their postal departments into digital, multi-service hubs. Bangladesh, however, remains trapped in bureaucratic inertia, outdated infrastructure and missed opportunities.
In the modern world, postal systems survive not on nostalgia but on relevance. India, for instance, has turned its post into a national logistics and financial powerhouse. During the pandemic, when lockdowns paralysed economies, India Post delivered medicines, oxygen concentrators and emergency supplies nationwide. With more than 155,000 post offices, it is now not just the largest postal network in the world but one of the most versatile. It runs inclusive banking, express delivery and digital financial services for millions. Vietnam鈥檚 postal service has taken a similar path, evolving into a digital ecosystem that processes payments for taxes, tuition and even flight bookings, while operating its own e-commerce platform, Postmart.vn Such transformations stand in sharp contrast to the fading counters of Bangladesh鈥檚 rural post offices.
Despite more than nine thousand branches, Bangladesh Post stands at a crossroads. The service that once connected villages and cities now struggles for purpose. Many sub-post offices remain inactive for days, some closed altogether. Postmen, once familiar figures in neighbourhoods, now have little to deliver. Money orders, once a major revenue stream, have been displaced by digital platforms such as bKash and Nagad. The department that once embodied reliability has become an institution waiting for either reinvention or obsolescence.
The problem is not only technological but institutional. For years, the postal department operated on the belief that it existed as a public service rather than a competitive enterprise. That logic no longer holds. In the digital age, service means efficiency, speed and accountability. Citizens expect instant transfers, real-time tracking and transparent delivery. Without adapting to these needs, the postal department risks becoming a relic maintained out of sentiment rather than necessity.
Corruption and inefficiency have compounded the crisis. During the previous government鈥檚 tenure, several modernisation projects were launched, from the Tk 365 crore Mail Processing and Logistics Service Centre project to Tk 900 crore for new post offices and a Tk 376 crore housing scheme for postal staff. Yet few yielded visible results. Reports of irregularities, inflated costs and poor-quality work undermined these efforts. The Agargaon postal building, built at Tk 92 crore and inaugurated in 2021, became a symbol of how misdirected spending can coexist with declining service quality.
Even so, progress is not absent. Bangladesh Post has improved its standing in the Universal Postal Union鈥檚 Integrated Postal Development Index 2024, climbing 51 places to rank 68th globally. Its development level rose from level 2 in 2022 to level 6 in 2024, signalling growing resilience and trust. But progress in statistics does not necessarily translate to better service culture or customer experience.
Operationally, around 80 per cent of internal letters are now processed through Domestic Mail Monitoring Software and half of deliveries are digitally tracked. These measures helped generate an additional Tk 17 crore in revenue last year. Integration with Universal Postal Union鈥檚 international software has also improved efficiency, recording 85 per cent of international mail data digitally and increasing foreign postal revenue by Tk 25 crore. The department even earned consecutive Customer Care Awards in 2022 and 2023. Modern logistics tools, such as real-time vehicle tracking and motorcycles for field staff, have marginally improved delivery times in cities.
Its most notable success, however, lies in Nagad, the postal department鈥檚 digital financial service. In March 2025, Nagad recorded its highest monthly transaction value of Tk 34,000 crore, surpassing private competitors in some categories. The introduction of digital Know Your Customer for business accounts shows what the department can achieve with autonomy and innovation. Yet Nagad鈥檚 success also highlights how unevenly modernisation has taken root across the rest of the postal network.
Small but promising initiatives have also emerged. The postal department鈥檚 mango delivery service, linking farmers in Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj directly with customers in Dhaka, has cut out middlemen and ensured fairer prices. Such ventures illustrate the potential for a reimagined postal system that supports rural logistics and e-commerce. Unfortunately, these remain isolated experiments rather than integrated national programmes.
Despite these steps, the department still operates within a dated bureaucratic framework. Most district post offices continue to rely on paper files and manual registers, their service hours limited and often inconsistent. Nominal digitisation cannot disguise chronic delays, unresponsive systems and weak accountability. Incremental upgrades will not save the institution without a full-scale overhaul of management, governance and technology.
The future of Bangladesh Post depends on whether policymakers can see it not as a nostalgic relic but as a national logistics and digital service network. Globally, postal services are shifting towards value-added functions, digital identity verification, financial inclusion, e-commerce facilitation and data-driven logistics. Countries like Singapore and South Korea have turned their postal systems into smart service hubs that power digital economies. Bangladesh too could transform its postal network into a hybrid platform 鈥� part physical, part digital 鈥� bridging citizens, businesses and the state.
That vision requires more than software and buildings. It demands clean governance, professional management and insulation from political interference. The government must set performance benchmarks, measure citizen satisfaction and establish independent oversight to prevent corruption. Without that, public money will continue to be wasted on a structure that delivers little.
If restructured with foresight, the postal network could become a vital rural service infrastructure, linking e-commerce, last-mile delivery and financial inclusion. But for that to happen, it must move from the mindset of a 鈥榩ostal service鈥� to that of a 鈥榩ostal platform.鈥�
Bangladesh Post stands today between progress and irrelevance. It has improved, but not transformed; survived, but not redefined itself. The recognition it has earned abroad will mean little if reforms remain cosmetic at home. Without genuine modernisation, the post office risks fading into history, not as a memory of what once connected people, but as a monument to opportunities lost.
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HM Nazmul Alam is a journalist, political analyst and currently teaching at IUBAT.
