Rogue mail

摘要

The fabled "Licence Raj", the suffocating blanket of regulatory controls that India has been steadily dismantling since 1991, had holes in it. In one of them sprouted a flourishing private courier business. Today, more than 1m people are employed in more than 2,500 firms, ranging from big multinationals such as DHL and TNT, to small local-delivery services operating fleets of bicycles. The industry is growing by 20-25% each year. Of around 16 billion items of post in India each year, private firms handle more than 7 billion. But the government, it seems, now wants to grab back a big chunk of that business for its own postal service, India Post. The couriers are up in arms.