by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

The roll­out of new postal codes which start­ed in 2011, will be com­plet­ed this year, says Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Robert Le Hunte.

Speak­ing at the launch of a postal code project host­ed by the Pe­nal/ Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion at Paria Suites Ho­tel in La Ro­maine on Wednes­day, Le Hunte said prop­er post sys­tems were an in­te­gral part of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

He said new postal codes will come on stream through­out T&T by the end of 2019.

"We have al­ready com­plet­ed nine cor­po­ra­tions, Siparia, Point Fortin, Cha gua­nas, Ari­ma, To­co/San­gre Grande/and Princes Town. We will be mov­ing to take the project to Port-of-Spain, Ma­yaro and Cou­va/ Tabaquite/Tal­paro soon," Le Hunte said.

Un­der the new postal code sys­tem, a build­ing num­ber is as­signed for all mail cor­re­spon­dences as the use of lamp pole num­bers, lot num­bers and mile mark­ers are no longer ac­cept­able in postal ad­dress­es.

All util­i­ty com­pa­nies are ex­pect­ed to be con­vert­ing their data­bas­es with the new postal ad­dress­es and the num­ber in postal ad­dress­es will be changed at the end of the project.

Le Hunte said the stan­dard postal code will al­low for co­op­er­a­tion be­tween postal ad­min­is­tra­tions world­wide.

GIS Of­fi­cer at TTPost Farah Ho­sein gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on the tech­ni­cal as­pects of the postal code sys­tem say­ing post­codes will be as­signed to all ad­dress­es.

"Ad­dress cards with new postal ad­dress­es for every de­liv­ery point will be dis­trib­uted," Ho­sein said, adding that un­named streets will not re­ceive cards.

She not­ed that the new postal ad­dress­es do not change who re­sides there or the iden­ti­ty of the res­i­dent.

"It iden­ti­fies a lo­ca­tion to fos­ter im­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tion and de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices. The cor­rect postal ad­dress does do not im­pact on deeds or lot num­bers or build­ing plans," she added.

Guardian Me­dia will bring you more on this lat­er.