Ban on travel outside Western province disrupts postal services

by Suresh Perera

The government’s move to prohibit travel outside the Western province has hampered postal services with the regular sorting of mail disrupted due to inadequate manpower, a senior official said.

“With the imposition of the travel ban, most of our employees cannot report for duty at the Central Mail Exchange (CME) as they live outside the Western province”, says Postmaster General, Ranjith Ariyaratne.

As a considerable segment of CME employees traveled from the Kurunegala, Kandy, Galle and Matara districts, they are now unable to return to Colombo due to the restrictions enforced, he noted.

“They traveled to work by train, and we don’t have the facilities to provide transport to them though their services are badly needed”, he outlined.

“Until Wednesday, we were doing fine with routine mail sorting continuing on a regular basis. However, that’s no longer possible due to the lack of sufficient employees at the CME”, the PMG said.

Asked whether mail had piled up due to the temporary closure of the CME earlier after two Covid-19 positive patients were found, Ariyaratne said there was no backlog as sorting was done at divisional level, though there were practical difficulties as the available small groups of workers had to shoulder the task.

He further said that mail delivery services have resumed in all areas, except those still under lockdown, after the 10-day quarantine curfew in the Western province.

The ban on travel outside the Western province is expected to lifted on November 15 (Monday) based on a review of the coronavirus transmission threat.

“If the situation warrants it, we will have to extend the prohibition to prevent the virus spreading to other provinces through cross border travel”, health officials said.