India Post introduced a six-digit Postal Index Number (PIN) code on August 15, 1972, the day the silver jubilee of India’s independence was observed. The idea was to give a unique identity to all physical addresses of the country in terms of the delivery jurisdiction of the post offices. This code was expected to help in bypassing the challenge of inaccurate addressing and ensure accurate and fast delivery by post offices. Now it is time to introspect whether the system succeeded in achieving its purpose in the last 50 years.
The postal code, known differently in different countries viz. postcode, zip code, etc, is an alpha-numeric or numeric number that is included in the postal address for easy identification of the sorting-district and the addressee’s delivery post office. The codes were introduced nationwide in Germany in the year 1944, Singapore (1950), Argentina (1958), the U.S. (1963), Switzerland (1964), India (1972), and the U.K. (1974). Introduction of sorting machines in the West in the 1960s also necessitated the introduction of codes since the machines could not read the addressee’s post office easily if described in writing. The Universal Postal Union says that 160 countries of the world have so far introduced postal codes.
