Even as online shopping has become very popular in the Kashmir valley, most of the goods ordered before the unrest begun on July 8, have not yet been delivered to the customers.
While some of these 45-day-old orders have been cancelled by the online shopping websites, other parcels are lying with the courier companies or post offices.
“I had ordered baby diapers in the first week of July. After more than half a month, today I received a mail from Amazon that the order has been cancelled,” said Muzamil, a housewife of the Rawalpora area.
Several customers also complained that the online shopping websites had not yet initiated the refunds of their prepaid orders.
A senior official of the Department of Posts (DoP), wishing not to be named, said they used to deliver parcels of several online shopping websites like Naaptol, Flipkart and Amazon but were unable to deliver most of them owing to the unrest after the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani on July 8.
He said several parcels were lying at the post offices as the staff was not able to attend the duties regularly and the deliveries were not possible due to imposition of curfew and restrictions.
“Even though we delivered many parcels in relatively calmer areas, deliveries to most of the places have not been possible due to restrictions. Sometimes, customers themselves collected parcels from the General Post Officice (GPO), which is open, and other post offices that managed to open on a few occasions,” the DoP official said.
While the official said they would deliver all parcels once the situation improved, private courier companies have altogether suspended their delivery.
“The online shopping websites are not accepting any new orders and the parcels of earlier orders could not reach us and were returned to courier offices in New Delhi. Most of the courier companies have their offices in and around city centre of Lal Chowk that remained worst-affected during the unrest,” said an employee of a courier company.
He said they used to deliver “hundreds of orders” daily but dozens of courier boys had now been left jobless.
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