On the occasion of 50th Anniversary of India?s Independence, when the then CPMG of Ahmedabad requested the Gujarat Philatelists? Association and its members to build a collection on India?s Freedom Struggle to be shown for full one year from 15th August 1997, it revealed that the Postal Department do not have all Postage stamps which will be shown in the collection.

If the Department do not have even Postage Stamps, how can we, the collectors think that they will have information on their workings of last 50 years. On enquiry, it was known that they do not have any systematic recordings of their workings. And this truth, forced me to jot down the loose ends of our Modern Postal History from 1947 to 1997.

I built a collection of Modern Postal History of India (1947-1997), which was shown in 1997. Since then I wanted to record the achievements, events, various Postal facilities and services, which were introduced and/or withdrawn during the last 50 years.

If we look back, we will find that in last 50 years many postal services were introduced out of which some were revised and few were discontinued. The facility of minimum two deliveries in a day has become history. Postal service?s labels, clear brass cancellations, time slug in cancellations and delivery postmarks are not found any more.

There are many facts (I came to know during my study) which are either not known to collectors, such as - 
1) Formula Post Card was introduced on 1st April 1950 and was sold across counters at 3 pies for 4 blank formula Post Cards.
2) Registered Envelope having Green Cross Lines and the legend was actually issued in 1951.

There were many postal services which are not even known today. Such as Air Parcel Service which was introduced on 30th January 1949 or regular Helicopter Mail Service in between Bagdogra and Gangtok which remained in existence for more then 9 months during 1988.

My study on Modern Postal History of India will move year wise in the following pages and all events/ achievements/ services/ rules/ regulations/ facilities are numbered chronologically.