Customized Covers

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Customized Covers

Introduction of customized postal & greeting envelopes in India is an offshoot and in turn, a subsequent development of the Greeting Postal envelopes introduced on September 6, 2000.
The first customized stamped envelope, was issued on December 1, 2001 for World Computer Literacy Day sponsored by the National Institute of Information Technology Limited, New Delhi (NIIT) and ceremoniously released by the then Minister for Communications, Information Technology, and Parliamentary Affairs, Pramod Mahajan at New Delhi.
India Post's terms and conditions for the customized envelopes were as follows:
Postage Stamp Impression shall not have (a) Denomination, (b) Name of the Country in Hindi & English (First customized envelope did carry the name of the country in Hindi & English), (c) Logo of the Sponsor and (d) Any prohibited item. However, these conditions were relaxed in case of Customised Greeting Envelopes and the greeting card bears the same design which is there on Sovereign Stamp.
The security features included (1) Printing of the India Post logo in fluorescent ink. (2) A unique code number starting with CE (for customized envelope) then the order number and year of printing, followed by sponsor’s code and finally the serial number. (3) Mailing only at the designated post office/s and not at any other post office and (4) Were to be used in one year.
India Post offered various sizes of customized envelopes in three varieties of the paper viz. 80, 90 and 100 GSM for corporate clients. The Envelopes may be with window or without and have opening at top or side as per the requirement of the sponsor. In addition the client may choose the amount of postage prepaid – Rs. 5 for inland letter rate, Rs. 15 for overseas airmail letter rate, Rs. 22 for inland registered mail, as per their requirements.
The entire quantity of customized postal stationery ordered was delivered to the Sponsors and these were not made available to philatelists. 19 Customized Stamped Envelopes and only 2 Customized Greeting Envelopes in all a total of 21 have been issued to date and India Post is not taking any new orders since 2004.