Every day, on an average, 1,000 money orders leave Noida, near Delhi — around 50 per cent of them for addresses in Bihar.

West Bengal is a distant second with 15 per cent followed by Chhattisgarh and eastern Uttar Pradesh with 10 per cent each.

Noida’s post offices send out over Rs 36 crore a year through nearly 3.65 lakh money orders.

Officials say the numbers and the amount have shot up four times in as many years, though specific data is not readily available. “The amount sent out every year was not even one-fourth of this till a few years back. It has grown rapidly in the past four years,” says postal official R K Dubey.

The rise in money orders shows the growth of Noida and its migrant population. Officials say migrant workers send 95 per cent of these.

Santosh Pradhan, who runs a paan shop in Sector 33, has been sending Rs 5,000 home every month. Noida has been good to Pradhan who has to look after a family of eight.

“For a saada-paan I would get just a rupee in Bihar, whereas I sell it for Rs 4 here. The profit is more and that’s the reason my whole family is doing well now,” he says. Pradhan claims he has been able to repay all debts in his village and is now planning to buy some land there.

When he came to the city eight years ago, he could send only Rs 10,000 a year. Two years ago, he brought his wife and two children to the big city so that “they get better education and learn English and Maths and study among the children of rich people.”

Prosenjit Sarkar, from West Bengal, who runs a roadside flower shop near the post-office in the same Sector, points to the NTPC office compound across. “It is this place that has made it possible for me to keep my family well. My customers are from NTPC and whatever I save is sent back home.”

Pradhan calls the post office “courier service agency for the poor” and says, “it is more reliable.”

Laxman Jha, head of the Bihari Unnati Samiti in Sector-51, claims that hundreds of people from the state are running paan shops in the city. “One just needs a small colony to set up a shop. There is scope for two paan shops for a colony with 200 flats,” he says.

The postal department is happy with the migrant boom. It gets around Rs 1.8 crore as commission from just money orders every year. Comparing the postal department to an MNC, Dubey says, “We make huge profits too. Just that our market is what nobody cares to look at.”

Mapping Noida’s Money Orders

BIHAR: 50 per cent, mostly to Purnea, Patna, Samastipur, Hajipur, Madhubani, Siwan and Chhapra

WEST BENGAL: 15 per cent

CHHATTISGARH: 10 per cent

EASTERN UP: 10 per cent. To Sultanpur, Gorakhpur, Ghazipur, Faizabad, Mau

ORISSA: 5-8 per cent