India Refugee Relief hand stamped over prints - Revenue?

Hi stampguyusa - I had a look in the Michel catalogue for India, and there is a message about refugee relief stamps in there:



Essentially it says that there are multiple types and that it would require a dedicate special catalogue. Does anyone have such a specialist catalogue for India?

Manish (theamateurphilatelist), nikhil is trying to tag you.... can you help with this question?

Thanks, Chris

The curvy ones are from 1967 series and straight edged ones are from 1958 series of service stamps (used for official communication). These seem to have been hand stamped overprints for Refuge Relief in 1971.

From 15 Nov 1971 to 31 Mar 1973 the Indian Government levied a 5 paise surcharge on all mails (except post-cards, newspapers, articles for blinds, items posted in FPO and state of J&K), Money Orders, First Day Covers and Telegrams for the relief of refugees from former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). In order to make the Postal Tax stamps immediately available throughout India, the post-masters were authorised to overprint existing definitives stamps locally.

One existing 5p definitive (Family planning) was overprinted as Refugee Relief and one 5p refugee relief definitive was issued in 1971. Additionally official service stamps were also overprinted by hand. One special service stamp for Refuge relief was also issued.

indianpostagestamps.com/articles/Dwarkadas_Refuge_Relief.pdf

www.rhcourtney-collector.com/refugeerelief.html

Hope this helps. Sorry, works been keeping me busy so I am less frequent here.