Telegram Service In India Shuts – End of an Era

- By Anamika Mishra

Telegram service which was also known as “Taar” in Hindi. Taar was the fastest way of communication decades back. During independence telegram services was one which was used mass during the struggle. During Independence telegram service was used by the army and their family to share good and bad news. Telegram service in India also played crucial role in many social issues in the history of India.

But as it is said age of method of communication couldn’t compete with modern sophisticated and fastest technologies and thus we can see its era come to end after 160 year of being in service. Taar was given ceremonial farewell and last message sent on 15th July 2013 and then after kept in museum.

Telecom Company BSNL controlled the telegram service. After a decade’s they decided to stop telegram service in India.

In India we had 75 telegram centers in country and had employee around 1000 individuals. Thus official employee said that daily 5000 telegram was sent in India through all centers. Till 2011 they were charging Rs. 4 per 50 words for sending telegram. After 2011 government first time raised charges for Rs. 27 per 50 words.
In India 1st telegram was sent in 1850 between Kolkata and Diamond Harbour.

In 1854 was opened for public. Even till 15th July 2013 Indian court of law and army used to send legal documents through telegram Not only government but journalist too used telegram for secure mean of encoded message transfer for communication. Journalist send short encoded message through telecommunication lines or radio. Thus one who receives this message should know how to decode the encoded message to get original message.

In ages of mobile phones and internet which are fastest way of communication thus old technology seems redundant. We should thanks to satellites as we can send message to anywhere from home. But its fact isn’t we all too much dependent on machines? If some technical or climatic reason it fails our work shut for a while thus this time we remember our loyal old means of communication.

I thus remember a dialogue from bollywood movie “Babuji Taar Ayya Hai!!!”