HYDERABAD: The postal department is waiting for clearance from the state health department to modify their mail vans to meet requirements of transporting vaccine vials.
“A month ago, a three-member team including members from the medical department, transport department and TSRTC had visited ‘mail motor service’ MMS, Koti. They checked our mail vans and felt that certain modifications were necessary to transport vaccine vials. The postal department is ready to make the modifications and is waiting for specifications from the health department,” said L A Arshad Khan, senior manager, MMS.
A member of the Postal Service Board (PSB), Delhi, K Sandhya Rani, who recently visited Hyderabad, said postmen and ‘gramin dak sevaks’ (GDS) would also support vaccination efforts by helping people link their mobiles with ‘Aadhaar’ numbers. Adding to this, the member of the PSB clearly stated that the department of posts does not have cold chains and cold storages and hence will not be doing vaccine transporting. “We are not tying up with the Union health ministry and even not examining the postal department’s stamp depots and postal departments stores depots across the country for cold storage facility to preserve Covid-19 vaccine vials,” member of PSB clarified.