Description of the setting

Name of setting: Customer section of Peradeniya Post office

Labuduwa Sri Damma Mawatha

Peradeniya

History

The Peradeniya post office was first establish near the Sarasavi Uyana Railway station, close to the

agriculture faculty. The current post office was built in 17th October 1975, as a one storied building.

This place was modified into a two storied building in 2000, with many facilities and services and was

reopened in 29th January 2000.

Road map

The post office is situated close to a main high way and 100m away from the famous botanical

garden.

Galaha

Junction

Colombo-Kandy Rd

Physical structure

The area of the post office is 1518 square meter (m2). There are two main sections in the post office.

They are the customer section and the mail section. The mail section is in the ground floor which was

the old building. The customer section is in the first floor which is the new building.

There were two main entrances to the customer section premises, one was from the main highway and

the other one was from the old sub street. There was only one entrance to the mail section premises

that was from the old sub street.

The front view of the post office was very clean and there was a staircase on the entrance pathway to

the customer section that leads to a small green grassland with some plants and potted plants. The

stair case lead to a paved pathway with three flag posts fixed to a cement foundation (figure 1).

Figure 1: The front view and entrance area of the customer section

The outer wall and inner walls of the customer section is painted in white colour and the windows in

is in brown colour. The entrance door is a wooden boarded pocket door with transparent glass at the

centre. Either side of the main entrance door was transparent glass frame covered by green wooden

boarders. The floor was fully tiled in blue. The customer section was air conditioned with two AC,

one fixed on the wall behind counter 1 and another in the post shop section. Near the AC of the wall

behind counter 1 there was a black coloured 21inch TV. The place was fully furnished with special

counters, desks, chair and shelves and with display racks. There were four main areas in the customer

section. They are the customer area, the counter area, post shop, internet café and chief post masters

office (figure 2).

Figure 2

In the counter area there were five counters specialised for various tasks. Counter 1 and 2 specialised

for stamp selling / telemail / telephone call, counter 3 provides services such as registration, foreign

express letter service, local speed post and local and foreign parcel, counter 4 postal money transfer,

ordinary money transfer, telegraphic money orders, fax money orders, electricity bills and mobitel

bills. Counter 5 for national saving bank (deposit and withdrawal) and vehicle on the spot fine

payment, exam fees, social security fund and other payments. In the counter section special designed

counters were kept which were painted in red and white in a customer friendly way (figure 2). At each

counter a laminated A4 sized sheet in yellow colour was kept giving information about the services

provided by the counter (figure 3).

Figure 3: counter, designed in a customer friendly way Figure 3: information cards at counters

Near the counter 1 there was a call box with a telephone and near to the call box there were two chairs

kept for customers use. On the left side of the main entrance, close to the glass wall there were three

letter boxes of green, red and blue colour. The green is for city letters, red coloured letter box was for

out of city letters and blue coloured box was for foreign letters (figure 4) each of letter box was

clearly labelled. There was black and grey coloured desk of about 3 ft. height for customer use and

there was a cut out bottle with glue in it kept on the desk and a brown wooded suggestion box.

Figure 4: letter boxes kept near the glass wall, customer’s desk with a suggestion box.

On the right side of the customer area or main entrance door is the post shop. There was only one

counter in the shop area. The shop was equipped with a computer, a photocopy machine and a

laminating machine. In the shop area there were two greeting card racks made of iron painted in

white, a raping paper rack and a book rack (figure 5). In addition to these, close to the shop area there

was a cylindrical shaped rack with few photographic film. The post shop provides services such as

faxing, photocopying, laminating, book binding, computer type setting, sale of greeting cards, sale of

gift Items, sale of school items, sale of packing materials, sale of stationaries.

Figure 5: Displays at the post shop area

Next to the post shop was the internet café room. There were six computer stations which are

separated by partitions and in each station there was a computer with a headset provided.

Figure 6: Internet café

Behind counter 5 was the chief post master’s room. The cabin was separated from the counter section

by glass frames but was not completely transparent. There was a telephone, a computer and the statue

of Lord Buddha kept in the room.

The wall the leads to the end of the customer area were painted in red and there was a framed

photograph of the president of Sri-Lanka hung on the wall. From here there was a brown wooden door

that leads to the mail section by a staircase.