Ludhiana, Aug. 5 -- With just four days to go for the Raksha Bandhan festival, visitors flocking post offices across Ludhiana to send rakhis and gifts to their siblings were left stranded on Monday after a major technical glitch during the roll-out of advance software IT 2.0, brought all postal services, including rakhi mail bookings through speed post, and registered post, to a complete halt.

Reportedly, the disruption followed a nationwide software upgrade implemented by the India Post on Monday, which has led to severe service inefficiencies. While upgrading the tech is part of a larger digital overhaul of postal systems across the country, the simultaneous roll-out has caused log in failures and long system buffer times at local post...