Postal Manual Vol. VIII - India Post

conditions, be forwarded to the Director of Postal Accounts, Delhi to ascertain of the orders in
question have been paid or not. A certificate of non-payment of the orders from that office can be
obtained only after expiry of sixteen months counting from the last day of the month of issue of the
order. On receipt of this certificate of non-payment from the Audit office the Superintendent of
Post Offices or the First Class Postmaster, as the case may be, may sanction the refund if he is
satisfied that the claim is genuine.
128. Sorting sub-offices.- The Superintendent is authorized to make any sub-office a
sorting sub-office. The object of a sorting sub-office is to reduce the number of mail bags
exchanged and thus decrease the weight of mails and exchanged and thus decrease the weight of
mails and expedite their transmission. It is not necessary that a sorting sub office should be a large
sub-office. Circumstances may render it advisable to make a number of small sub-offices situated
on the same mail line sorting sub-offices in respect of one another. For example, if there are six
small sub-offices, A, B, C, D, E and F, situated on a runner’s line in the interior of a division
instead of A closing five mail bags for B, C, D, E and F, it may, with advantage, make up a
combined mail bag for B, containing also articles for the other four offices, and B and the others
may follow a similar course in regard to the offices in advance.
NOTE. - The Superintendent may, in special cases make a branch office a sorting office in respect
of unregistered articles of the letter mail.
129. Mail communication between sub and branch offices.- Ordinarily, there will be a
daily mail service between post offices situated off the railway, but in the case of very small suboffices
and branch offices situated in wild and thinly populated parts of the country, a mail service
once, twice or three times a week will often be found sufficient.
130. Special procedure for closing of branch office bags. – (1) In a sub-office where the
sub-postmaster is assisted by one or more clerks, and where sorting for branch offices has to be
done by a clerk at night, the Superintendent may,if he considers it necessary, prescribe the
adoption of the procedure laid down in the Exception below rule 638 of the Posts and Telegraphs
Manual, Volume VI, and order the supply of a special sub-account seal to the sub-office for this
purpose, if it is not already in possession of such a seal.
(2) In exceptional cases, when paid unregistered articles of the letter mail received from a
branch office have to be sorted in the account offices at night by an official other then the one who
does sub-account work, the Superintendent may, in order to prevent the unnecessary handling of
cash remitted by the branch office, direct the branch office and its account office to follow the
respective special procedures described in the Exceptions below rule 170 of the Rules for Branch
Offices and 79 of the Posts and Telegraphs Manual, Volume VI, in closing the branch office bag
and in disposing of its contents .
131. Disposal of telegrams booked by receiving offices. - The Superintendent must
supply each non-combined office under his control, which is authorized to book telegrams with a
memorandum containing instructions showing the telegraph office or offices to which it should
transmit telegrams and specifying by what dispatches of mails telegrams should be forwarded, and
whether the telegraph envelopes should be sent in the usual way as registered letters or enclosed in
a telegraph bag.
132. Beats of village postmen. – (1) The Superintendent will receive from the Inspectors
route lists and beat maps (M-53) indicating the introduction or the discontinuance of the exchange
of mails offices in their respective sub-divisions ( including first class head offices) for record in
his office.