The Ayanavaram post office on Portuguese Road is nearly 90 years old, and of late, has begun to show its age.

The old building is currently plagued by the accumulation of empty, unusable mail bags that litter its premises.

For
over a year now, these bags have collected in heaps, and exposed to the
weather all year round, have become breeding grounds for insects and
even snakes, customers allege.

“The post office has
now become inconvenient and unsafe because of this garbage. I can’t
leave my child alone at home, so she used to accompany me here earlier.
But she was bitten by a bug once when she was standing near the mail
bags and so, I don’t bring her here anymore,” said Janaki Anatharaman, a
customer and a resident of Ayanavaram.

The empty
mail bags come to the post office periodically from various places and
are divided into ‘sound’, ‘repairable’ and ‘condemned’ bags. “The sound
bags are re-sent for use to the district bag office; the repairable ones
are fixed here and then sent back, while the condemned ones which are
unfit for further use are supposed to be disposed of.

The
sound and repairable ones are removed from the post office premises but
the condemned ones have been here for nearly three years now,” said an
official.

Officials say they have already asked
Chennai Corporation officials on several occasions to remove the
unusable bags but to date, nothing has been done.

This
apart, since the entire post office is in bad condition, maintenance
work including painting, fixing of tiles and some patch work is being
carried out at a cost of Rs. 12 lakh.

Some officials though, say this is not enough.

“Even
when there is a light shower, the building begins leaking. Since it is
old, ideally, the building should be demolished and reconstructed. But
the authorities have decided that just some patch work will do,” an
official said.