West Bengal Circle pays homage to Shri Susanta Bhushan Bhattacharya (1943-2019), retired Member of the Postal Services Board who passed away on 24th morning at his residence in Calcutta.

An officer of the Indian Postal Service (1966 batch), Sh. Bhattacharya was widely recognised as an effective and balanced officer who left his mark wherever he worked. In his illustrious career, he worked as Controller Mail Planning & Operations at Mumbai, Postmaster General Kolkata, Chief PMG Odisha, CPMG West Bengal/ Sikkim/ Andaman & Nicobar Islands, besides working at Postal Directorate, Ministry of Communications, New Delhi, in different capacities. Mr. Bhattacharya also worked on deputation in the Central Ministries of the Govt. of India with much reputation.

"He was a supportive Boss, very positive in his outlook and working under him was effective but never stressful" recalls a senior officer who worked under him. "I found him commanding great respect from the leaders of the service unions" he stated. Mr. Bhattacharya's administrative skills were aptly demonstrated in organising the Indipex Asiana (an international Philatelic Exhibition) at Netaji Indoor Stadium, Calcutta, in December 2000, at a time when all the three Employee's Federations of the Postal Department were observing an all India strike on various issues (not related to the Exhibition). Inspite of organising the event against all odds, Indipex was a great success and nearly 40,000 school children visited the exhibition site in three days. It was Shri Bhattacharya who had first experimented with the concept of personalised stamp (what today is known as 'My Stamp') in India during the Trade Fair in Calcutta in 2001 ... It was during his tenure as CPMG in Bengal, India Post redefined the Postal map of Calcutta city and extended the jurisdiction of the city right upto Barrackpore in North-West, Barasat in North-East, Baruipur in South-East and Batanagar in South-West. The idea was that the people in the greater Calcutta area should get the similar facilities like the people of the City proper.

S.B.Bhattacharya was a gem of a person, who had interest on many matters. Wherever he worked, he took initiatives to foster camaraderie and fellow feeling between families of the employees. While commanding reverence from his junior colleagues, he also enjoyed the goodwill of their families ... He was instrumental in introducing a course on Philately at Jadavpur University in 2002. He was an active Rotarian and also a great connoisseur of classical art and music. Sh. Bhattacharya was also equally interested in Sports and was Vice President of the All India Kick-Boxing Federation for quite sometime. He left his wife and son behind.