The General Post Office, Patna (abbreviation GPO, commonly known as the Patna GPO) is a

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

building located in

Patna, Bihar Patna (; , ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paṭanā''), historically known as Pataliputra, Pāṭaliputra, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, ...

, India. It is the central

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

of the city of Patna and the headquarters of India Post's Bihar Circle. It is located on the intersection of Buddh Marg and New Market Station Road. The post office handles most of the city's inbound and outbound mails and parcels. As of 2017, GPO Patna delivers 1 lakh letters and parcels daily through 96 postmen. It also has more than 12 lakh

savings accounts A savings account is a bank account at a retail bank. Common features include a limited number of withdrawals, a lack of cheque and linked debit card facilities, limited transfer options and the inability to be overdrawn. Traditionally, transact ...

. The building was designed by New Zealand-born architect Joseph Fearis Munnings. The GPO campus also houses the office of the Chief Postmaster General for Bihar Circle. The construction of building started in 1912 and was completed in 1917. The building was opened to public in 1917 and was then known as Post and Telegraph Office. The building was part of the New Patna that British established in 1912 after the division of

Bihar and Orissa Bihar and Orissa was a province of British India, which included the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and parts of Odisha. The territories were conquered by the British in the 18th and 19th centuries, and were governed by the then ...

from

Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal until 1937, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule in India, Company rule and later a Provinces o ...

. The post office celebrated its centenary year in 2017.

History

At the Delhi Durbar of 1911 King

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936. George w ...

announced the creation of a new province of

under a lieutenant-governor. British decided Patna to be the capital of the new province. With this came the need to establish government offices and buildings such as the

Patna Secretariat Patna Secretariat, also known as Patna Sachivalaya or Old Secretariat, is the administrative headquarters of the state Government of Bihar in India. It is located in Bihar's capital city of Patna. This building is situated between two iconic buil ...

, Raj Bhavan (Bihar),

Patna University Patna University is a public state university in Patna, Bihar, India. It was established on 1 October 1917 during the British Raj. It is the first university in Bihar and the seventh oldest university in the Indian subcontinent in the modern e ...

campus,

Patna High Court The Patna High Court of Judicature at Patna (commonly known as Patna High Court) is the High Courts of India, High Court of the Indian state, state of Bihar. It was established on 3 February 1916 by British colonial government and was later aff ...

, Post and Telegraph Office. Munnings was appointed as Consulting Architect to the Government of Bihar and Orissa in the year 1912 and was tasked with the planning and development of New Patna. Lord Hardinge laid the stone of new buildings in Patna on 1 December 1912. The construction of the building started in 1912 and was completed in 1917. It was opened for the public on 1 July 1917 with 17 employees in total and was built over an area of 22 acres. Patna GPO when built was known as Post and Telegraph Office. It was however, not the first post office in Patna. The first post office in official records of Patna was near Anisabad area. This post office was later shifted to

Bankipore Bankipur is a neighbourhood and residential area in Patna, in the Indian state of Bihar. It is located on the bank of the river Ganges. The prime attraction is the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library built by Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh in 1891 and ...

, 150 metres away from the current GPO building. When the GPO building was constructed, the Bankipore post office moved to Muradabad area on Ashok Rajpath. The first post office of the province of Bihar and Orissa was opened near

Hazaribagh Hazaribagh is a city and a municipal corporation in Hazaribagh district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is also the administrative headquarters of Hazaribagh district and divisional headquarters of North Chotanagpur division. It is known ...

- now part of the state of

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in East India, eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north ...

Building and architecture

The post and telegraph office, Patna was built in Gothic Revival architectural style. J.F. Munnings was the main architect on the project and was influenced by choice of local materials and plain designs. These constraints were also practical in nature as it was the time when

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

was waging and

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

was one of the main belligerents of the allied powers. This led to the plain designs of the building as the empire was spending more on war efforts. The building is a flat roofed, plastered brick building featuring

Chhajja A ''chhajja'' is an overhanging eave or roof covering found in Indian architecture. It is characterised with large support brackets with different artistic designs. Variation is also seen in its size depending on the importance of the building on ...

. The building also has

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

features as when built, it was located on the edge of the old city of Patna and was on the road leading from old city to the new capital city of Patna. It also features an

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated video, pinball, electro-mechanical, redemption, etc., game ** Arcade video game, a coin-operated video game ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade video game's hardware ** Arcad ...

. The original structure had three porticoes - north, south and east. East portico functioned as the main entrance. The western flank was added later. The ground floor has seven rooms and four halls with counter areas. The first floor houses 14 halls which are quite huge in size. The chief postmaster's office is now located in the central portion, while the deputy postmaster's office is located underneath it. The building was renovated in the year 2000 at a cost of INR 1.25 crore. The renovation also added five gardens, including one having medicinal herbs to the campus.

Location

Patna GPO is located in Beer Chand Patel Path locality of Patna. The main building is located on the intersection of Buddh Marg and New Market Station Road. The main portico of the building faces in the south east direction. GPO is less than 1 km from

Patna Junction Patna Junction (station code PNBE) is a major railway station located in the capital city of Patna in the Indian state of Bihar. It is the main railway station serving Patna . It maintained under the Danapur division of the East Central Railway ...

and around 6 km from

Patna Airport Jay Prakash Narayan Airport is a domestic airport serving Patna, the capital of Bihar, India. It is named after the independence activist and political leader, Jayprakash Narayan. It is the 20th-busiest airport in India. To meet demand, the A ...

Hardinge Park Hardinge Park officially known as Shaheed Veer Kunwar Singh Azadi Park is a public park in the city of Patna built by British Raj in 1916. The park was initially named after Viceroy Charles Hardinge and was built in his honour as he was instrum ...

is located on west side of the GPO campus.

Current use

Patna GPO currently serves as the main post office of the city of Patna and is also the head office of Bihar circle of India Post. The area of the building is around 2.5 lakh sq ft and houses almost 296 employees. One multipurpose hall on ground floor houses the counters of all the mail and booking services. The other three halls on ground floor deal with financial services, staff and

philately Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possibl ...

. A separate area for 96 postmen is housed in seven other rooms on the same floor in the southern flank. Mail, delivery and parcel sections are also present in the same section. There are separate counters for senior citizens and students in the northern side of the building.

References

External links