Postal Manual Vol. VIII - India Post

(c) British, Irish and Indian postal orders will be forwarded direct to the Deputy
Accountant-General Posts and Telegraphs, Calcutta, Nagpur and Delhi, respectively,
for disposal, and a note to this effect made in the register of articles containing valuable
property in store.
(d) Hundis, bank drafts, and cheques will be destroyed by being burnt in the presence of
the Manager, after taking the orders of the Postmaster-General, and a note that this has
been done will be made in the register of articles containing valuable property in store,
against the entries of the articles.
(e) All other articles of value must be disposed of by public auction through the agency of
some person selected by the Postmaster-General and unconnected with the Department.
Care must be taken that all writing on such articles is obliterated and that, before the
articles are made over for sale, any letters of documents accompanying them are
destroyed. A complete list of the articles will be prepared in duplicate by the Manager,
and be signed by him and the person conducting the sale; one copy will be delivered to
the latter with the articles and the other filed in the R.L.O., a serial No. and date being
assigned to it. The same No. and date will be entered in the last column of the register
of articles containing valuable property in store opposite the entry of each article made
over for sale. The amount realised by the sale will be paid under receipt to the
postmaster of the headquarter post office to be credited in his accounts as an
unclassified receipt.
NOTE 1.- The period of one year will be counted from the date on which the articles were finally
received as returned.
NOTE 2.- R.L.O. officials are warned that they are precluded from bidding for or purchasing directly
or indirectly, anything put up for sale by auction by the R.L.O.
NOTE 3. – When a valuable article, an entry of which appears in the register of articles containing
valuable property in store forms the subject of correspondence with any of the post offices or supervising
officers or any member of the public, the article should not be auctioned or otherwise disposed of until it is
definitely decided that neither the sender nor the addressee has claimed it or is traceable.
EXCEPTION – This rule does not apply to the cases of inward foreign parcels which cannot
be delivered to the addressee in spite of the efforts made to deliver them in accordance with the
senders’ instructions noted on the parcel or received in response to a notice of non-delivery and
which are ultimately declared by the senders to be treated as abandoned. Such of the abandoned
parcels as are charged with Customs duty will be made over by the office of exchange to the
Collector of Customs concerned at once and other abandoned parcels forwarded to the Returned
Letter Office for disposal.
436. Test of efficiency of post offices. – The R.L.O. affords a means of testing the
efficiency of every postmaster and the working of every post office in the Circle or Circles served
by it. Some of the articles sent to the R.L.O. show how the work of delivery is performed; others
indicate whether the instructions regarding redirection are attended to or not; and the error book of
the R.L.O. gives a general idea of the efficiency of the several post offices.
437. Enumeration of articles. – (1) During the second week of the months of February
and August of each year, i.e., from the 8 th to the 14 th both days inclusive, an enumeration must be
made daily of the numbers the different classes of ordinary unregistered articles of the letter and
parcel mail received in, and despatched by, each R.L.O. The enumeration for 3 out of the 7 days
will be carried out by an Assistant Postmaster-General or Assistant Director.