Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
Long before places had numbers, a letter in India travelled on foot. Under the Mughals, and in kingdoms before them, runners carried the dak in relays. Each man ran his own stretch and handed the bag on. Many carried a spear, and bells that jangled as they ran. No runner needed to know where a letter would end up. He needed only the road to the next village.
That small fact explains a good deal about the post. It has never needed one person to understand the whole map, only each person to know the next step. For most of its history, the hard part was the last step. Indian addresses were descriptions rather than coordinates: the house behind the Hanuman temple, the second lane after the flour mill. A letter addressed like that arrived because some postman remembered which Gupta family had moved and which lane had been renamed.
The PIN code, introduced on 15 August 1972, tried to take some of that memory out of human heads. Its six digits narrow a destination in stages, from a broad region of the country down to a single delivery post office. A sorter in a distant city no longer had to know the town. He had only to read a number. There is nothing glamorous about this workaday invention, though it quietly moves mail across one of the largest postal networks in the world.
Yet the number did not finish the job. It brings the letter to the right post office, and there its work stops. From that counter to the door, India still writes “near the old water tank”, and the post still sends someone who knows where the tank used to be.
Which of the following best expresses the central idea of the passage?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Mail has always moved by each person knowing the next step, and the PIN code eased sorting without ending the need for local memory.
One idea runs from the dak runners to the PIN code. Each person in the chain needs to know only the next step.
- A runner needed “only the road to the next village”. The post has never needed one person to know “the whole map”.
- The PIN code took “some of that memory out of human heads”. A sorter no longer had to know the town.
- But the number stops at the post office. The last step still needs a postman who knows where the old water tank used to be.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: The PIN code ended the old dependence on local postmen and gave Indian addresses real precision for the first time. — Incorrect. Contradicted: The passage says the number “did not finish the job”. The post still sends someone who knows the area.
Option 2: The relay of dak runners was so well planned that later changes to the Indian post, the PIN code included, added very little to it. — Incorrect. Contradicted: The PIN code did add something. After it, a sorter “no longer had to know the town”.
Option 4: Because Indian addresses are loose descriptions, letters in India have mostly struggled to reach the right door. — Incorrect. Misread: The passage says such letters “arrived”, because a postman remembered the area. It does not say they failed to arrive.