The 139 postmen and rural portfolios on the Island of Tenerife now offer many of the services at home that until now were only provided at Post Offices. Through the new portable electronic devices (PDAs) they have, it is possible for citizens living in isolated areas to comfortably carry out many of the procedures that until now required physical travel. Throughout the island’s geography, from north to south and from east to west. Because of the 31 municipalities, almost twenty have less than 20,000 inhabitants and because other more populated localities also have rural areas that are difficult to access.
For example, in Teno, which depends on the Buenavista del Norte area, or in Anaga, the Massif divided between Santa Cruz and La Laguna. The Metropolitan Area also presents this type of traditionally peasant habitat, isolated and dispersed. Valleseco, María Jiménez, San Andrés, where the auxiliary office is located, Taganana, Afur, Roque Negro… Nuclei of the capital where these new services of Post “door to door”, right at the entrance of the houses.
Send and receive parcels, pay bills and taxes, acquire packaging, envelopes and stamps, manage electricity, telephone and insurance services or requesting the sending of cash are among the main services that the public postal company provides at home.
Throughout the Canary Islands there are 330 workers. Of these, there are 185 rural services in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and 146 in Las Palmas. In addition to those mentioned above, they also provide the new services of Correos Frío – real-time control of the cold chain – and Correos Telecom – fiber and mobile telephone operator. The company provides this part of its workforce in the Canary Islands with 1,400 new portable electronic devices (PDAs) to bring these services closer to citizens, regardless of where they live.
Citizens residing in any rural town in Tenerife can, through their postmen and purses, order the product they are interested in and complete the operation at home.
Correos maintains the work to “diversify the activity and bring services closer to all citizens”. The objective is to “make your day-to-day life easier, especially in rural areas.”
Anaga’s example
Rural postmen in the area already collect receipts from residents of Anaga. in the municipality of Santa Cruz. They started last March Payment can be made both in cash and by card. The public company offers the possibility of carrying out banking procedures and delivering money in cash.
Before launching the initiative, Correos explained the advantages of its new service for the residents of Chamorga, Catalanes, Casas de la Cumbre, Roque Negro and Afur, among other hamlets in the Rural Park. The experience had been released weeks before in Taganana, also in Anaga, and in the El Pinar town of El Hierro.
The Roque Negro rural school welcomed the neighborhood representatives from the interior of the Massif. There they listened to the manager in the Canary Islands, Iván Rodríguez García, who presented the new benefits of the public company.
Through the 330 rural postmen of the Archipelago, Correos will provide the same services at home as in the main offices. Among them, the payment of electricity or water bills, the payment of the Real Estate Tax (BIC) and the Garbage Tax, as well as sending a package through the area postman or carrying out procedures typical of a bank.
The towns of Lugo, in Galicia, and Jaén (Andalusia) were the first in which this on-demand service was enabled. In principle it was intended for the residents of the so-called Empty Spain but it is perfectly applicable to the particular orography of Tenerife.
Another of the advantages that it launches refers to businessmen and entrepreneurs from Anaga. They are offered the possibility of selling the products they produce from the Correos Market virtual store, free of charge, without paying commissions.
The commitment was then to extend the schedule so that the postmen could cover such a dispersed area in their working day. They maintain it today to achieve full access to the service. Under the motto of “bringing receipts closer to those who have decided to live in these areas.” Center services in isolated places. It is the basis of this initiative that continues with the idea of ”diversifying the activity and improving the service to all citizens to make their day-to-day life easier, especially in rural areas,” the sources explain.
The majority unions in Correos, CCOO and UGT, maintain the conflict and consider that “the viability and future of the almost 1,200 workers in Tenerife and almost 40,000 in the state are at stake.” They support it in what they understand as “a process of privatization and dismantling” that the company denies.
