Nagpur post offices are facing delays in parcel bookings ahead of Diwali after repeated damage to underground BSNL cables during road excavation and widening work disrupted internet connectivity and slowed postal servers, increasing waiting times for customers.
The disruption comes as post offices in the city see a seasonal rise in demand for sending parcels containing sweets and gifts to family members living in other cities. At the General Post Office, Savitha Landge, 57, waited for nearly 30 minutes to send a parcel to her son in Mumbai before postal staff told her that the server was down.
Sources in the Nagpur division of India Post said the department relies on BSNL for internet connectivity. Frequent interruptions have affected transactions, including parcel processing and the uploading of customer details, according to the report.
BSNL personnel said cable damage during construction and excavation work was a recurring problem. Contractors using heavy machinery often do not adequately account for underground utility lines, officials said. Some BSNL cables were laid 20 to 25 years ago, making road-widening projects a particular risk to the ageing network.
The connectivity problem is not limited to physical cable cuts. BSNL personnel also cited excessive load on servers and too many nodes connected to a single network connection as possible contributors to slow internet speeds and intermittent connectivity. This means that even when a local connection is restored, postal transactions can continue to be affected if the postal server remains slow or unresponsive.
India Post has provided employees with dongles as an alternative connection, but postal sources said the devices offer limited relief when the main postal server itself is facing performance problems. Staff must still process customer information and parcel details through systems affected by the wider connectivity and server issues.
The disruption highlights how road construction can affect services that residents do not immediately associate with excavation work. Underground communication cables support routine transactions at public offices, and damage to these networks can translate into queues and delays rather than visible failures on the road surface.
For customers sending Diwali parcels, the immediate consequence is longer time spent at post offices during an already busy period. The report did not specify the duration of the disruptions, the number of affected post offices or a restoration timeline. Postal operations therefore remain dependent on the stability of the BSNL network and the performance of the department’s servers while the seasonal rush continues.
