Thromde: Thimphu thromde and Bhutan Post launched the city addressing and door-to-door service delivery at the clock tower square yesterday.

The service is piloted in Norzin lam, Wongzin lam (the road that runs through the clock tower square) and Chang lam in the capital.

Thromde’s GIS engineer Tsheten Dorji, said there are 124 buildings in the pilot areas. The whole of Thimphu is estimated to house around 6,500 buildings.

Street addressing is defined in relation to the street and the buildings are numbered odd on the left and even on the right.  The coding system makes it easy for people to locate each street, plot of land or a dwelling.

The street addressing is expected to assist emergency services and help urban services locate destinations without difficulty.  Government offices and public-oriented entities will also be benefitted in issuing notices, distribution of bills, newspapers, product advertisement, locating clients for delivery of parcels, or food, among others.

However, officials said they weren’t aware about how many mailboxes have been installed on how many homes.

Bhutan Post will provide door-to-door delivery service if property owners have mailboxes installed on their buildings.  With the installation of individual mailboxes, Bhutan Post expects to gradually do away with the old technology of maintaining post boxes at the post offices in big towns.

Thimphu thrompon, Kinlay Dorjee, said that most property owners in the pilot area have mailboxes installed in their buildings.

Owners, wishing to have mailboxes in their building, can approach the thromde and have mailbox installed at the cost of the property owner.  The government exempted tax on the import of mailboxes, so that building owners can avail them at a reasonable price.

Currently, house owners in the pilot areas have mailboxes with 12, eight and single compartments.  A mailbox with 12 and eight doors costs about Nu 14,000 and Nu 10,000 respectively.  A single door mailbox costs about Nu 2,500.

Housing units will now be assigned standard mailing addresses, with the name of the addressee and organisation, building number, flat number, and unit/shop number, street name and a postal code.

On government directives in July 2010, the joint project was initiated to develop a geographic information system (GIS) based city addressing system to provide efficient door-to-door service delivery.

A Bhutan Post official said, “The project will greatly contribute to defining individual addressing system for better delivery of services to the public.”

By Dechen Tshomo

Advertisement