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Number of telegram runners fall from 500 to less than a hundred due to advanced communication tools
Modern communication methods like fax and emails have robbed the jobs of the telegraph runners in Kerala..
“Such facilities are now available everywhere. We don't even have a third of the work we had earlier. Very often, people already know what we have come to deliver. Those who send telegrams are also using the phone,” says Mohanan Pillai, a telegram runner.
With the telegram itself losing out to new forms of communication, runners are hardly in demand. From nearly 500 runners in the past, their numbers have dwindled to less than a hundred now. The last time a telegram runner was recruited was 18 years ago.
Banks, government departments and the military are the three biggest users of the telegram. The runners have been saved from extinction by these institutions.
Source: www.ndtv.com, June 08, 2002
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