<P> The Post Office Act XVII of 1837 provided that the Governor - General of India in Council had the exclusive right of conveying letters by post for hire within the territories of the East India Company . Section XX required all private vessels to carry letters at prescribed rates for postage . A handstamp was applied to preadhesive ship letters . The mails were available to certain officials without charge, which became a controversial privilege as the years passed . On this basis the Indian Post Office was established on 1 October 1837 . </P> <P> The urgent European mails were carried overland via Egypt at the isthmus of Suez . This route, pioneered by Thomas Waghorn, linked the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, and thence by steamer via Marseilles, Brindisi or Trieste to European destinations . The Suez Canal did not open until much later (17 November 1869). The time in transit for letters using the Overland Mail route was dramatically reduced . Waghorn's route reduced the journey from 16,000 miles via the Cape of Good Hope to 6,000 miles; and reduced the time in transit from three months to between 35 and 45 days . </P> <P> The use of the Scinde Dawk adhesive stamps to signify the prepayment of postage began on 1 July 1852 in the Scinde / Sindh district, as part of a comprehensive reform of the district's postal system . A year earlier Sir Bartle Frere had replaced the postal runners with a network of horses and camels, improving communications in the Indus river valley to serve the military and commercial needs of the British East India Company . </P> <P> The new stamps were embossed individually onto paper or a wax wafer . The shape was circular, with "SCINDE DISTRICT DAWK" around the rim and the British East India Company's Merchant's Mark as the central emblem . The paper was either white or greyish white . The blue stamp was printed onto the paper by the die during the embossing, while the wax version was embossed on a red sealing wax wafer on paper; but all had the same value of 1 / 2 anna . They were used until October 1854, and then officially suppressed . These are quite scarce today, with valuations from US $700 to $10,000 for postally used examples . The unused red stamp was previously valued at £ 65,000.00 by Stanley Gibbons (basis 2006); however, it now appears that no unused examples have survived . </P>

Who was the first living indian person to feature on postage stamp of india