Slashdot Mirror
Delivering Amazon Packages To the Top of the World (nytimes.com)
Vindu Goel, writing for The New York Times: Perched high in the Himalayas, near India's border with China, the tiny town of Leh sometimes seems as if it has been left behind by modern technology. Internet and cellphone service is spotty, the two roads to the outside world are snowed in every winter, and Buddhist monasteries compete with military outposts for prime mountaintop locations. But early each morning, the convenience of the digital age arrives, by way of a plane carrying 15 to 20 bags of packages from Amazon. At an elevation of 11,562 feet, Leh is the highest spot in the world where the company offers speedy delivery.
When the plane arrives from New Delhi, it is met by employees from Amazon's local delivery partner, Incredible Himalaya, who then shuttle the packages by van to a modest warehouse nearby. Eshay Rangdol, 26, the nephew of the owner, helps oversee the sorting of the packages and delivers many of them himself. The couriers must follow exacting standards set by Amazon, from wearing closed-toe shoes and being neatly groomed to displaying their ID cards and carrying a fully charged cellphone. Amazon began offering doorstep delivery in this region last fall, as part of an effort to better serve the remotest corners of India. Sales volume in Leh is up twelvefold since Incredible Himalaya took over deliveries from the postal service, which was much slower and required customers to pick up packages at the post office.
When the plane arrives from New Delhi, it is met by employees from Amazon's local delivery partner, Incredible Himalaya, who then shuttle the packages by van to a modest warehouse nearby. Eshay Rangdol, 26, the nephew of the owner, helps oversee the sorting of the packages and delivers many of them himself. The couriers must follow exacting standards set by Amazon, from wearing closed-toe shoes and being neatly groomed to displaying their ID cards and carrying a fully charged cellphone. Amazon began offering doorstep delivery in this region last fall, as part of an effort to better serve the remotest corners of India. Sales volume in Leh is up twelvefold since Incredible Himalaya took over deliveries from the postal service, which was much slower and required customers to pick up packages at the post office.
The USPS is not subsidized. And yet all the anti-government types keep trying to point to it as a failure when it's probably one of the best run government departments. Mostly because the USPS is required to act much like an independent business because of the 1971 Postal Reorganization Act. Tax dollars are only used in limited cases, such as delivery of voting materials overseas. Junk mail actually keeps the system going. Amazon can deliver to this remoate place in the Himalayas, but it won't deliver to some places in the US that the post office does serve. Profit is what matters to Amazon.
Certainly the postal system could be improved, but I don't understand why it's constantly held up as an example of wasteful government.