BENGALURU: Thousands of women rushed to Bengaluru General Post Office (GPO) on Monday after a rumour that some political parties would transfer Rs 8,000 in their post-office accounts. GPO officials had to deploy additional personnel to facilitate opening of new accounts and sought police help to regulate the crowd, which started assembling from 3 am.
The talk was that the postal department was depositing the money in every single account opened under the India Post Payment Bank. The rumours were afloat on WhatsApp over the last week and went viral in RWA groups. Believing that Monday was the last date for registration, hundreds of women reached GPO.
Sources in the postal department told TOI that people believed that opening of the account was the beginning of the process to get cash incentive. Others believed the programme was already under way, and the postal department had started crediting Rs 8,000 into everyone’s account.
HM Manjesh, chief postmaster at the GPO, said: ” We even put up posters at entry gates saying there was no such cash incentive programme or initiative announced by the postal department …”
On Monday alone, over 2,000 women had reached GPO by the afternoon. “We used to open an average 100 to 200 accounts daily. But over the last one week, we’ve been opening 700 to 800 accounts everyday at GPO alone,” said an official.