With Jassi, the eponymous secretary of the hit TV serial "Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin", becoming the first soap character Wednesday to have a special postal cover on her, other stars could well follow the trend too.

The dowdy, bespectacled secretary of the serial by Sony TV may well be the first of other TV and film personalities appearing on special postal covers brought out by the postal department to commemorate special events.

As different postal zones in the country race to meet their business development targets, special postal covers and advertisements on inland letters, postal cards and aerograms are lucrative sources of revenue generation, admitted postal officials.

"With the launch of the first special cover on Jassi, marking the first anniversary of the serial, we hope to start off a campaign to attract more film and television personalities to reach their fans through our products," said K. Noorjehan, Chief Post Master General of Maharashtra Circle, which includes Goa.

Sony Entertainment Channel has funded the cost of printing 100,000 copies of the special cover, priced at two rupees.

"Many people prefer to retain the first day covers as part of their philately collection," said Noorjehan.

Unlike special stamps honouring personalities and commemorating events, for which rules are very strict and the demand is huge, the postal department in each region has some leeway in deciding on special covers based on a committee's approval of the subject and design. "We have a business development target of Rs.2.5 billion out of which Rs.100 million is expected to be generated through media campaigns. Anybody can apply for the special cover or advertisement campaigns on postal products," said the official.

She said the returns on such advertisements were very high.

For bringing out special covers, the advertiser has to bear the cost of printing and submit Rs.3,000 as the initial cost for setting up a counter for the sale of the product.

In the case of Jassi, the Maharashtra Postal Department has made the first departure from convention by honouring a television icon.

"Mumbai being very differently placed with a strong Bollywood influence, we decided to go ahead with the Jassi cover as well as the advertisement campaign on the Meghdoot card, or postal card, which should find many takers in the northern states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana," Noorjehan said.

She said she was hopeful that more TV and film personalities would use postal products as a vehicle to reach out to their fan following and help the department rake in more revenue.

Even the family welfare department is currently using the postal products for pushing their messages.

"As against Rs. 1.83 billion business development revenue last year, we are sure of exceeding the target of Rs.2.5 billion this fiscal. A Rs.40 million tourism campaign Go Goa on aerograms by the Goa Tourism Department and now the Rs.200,000 Jassi campaign are some of our recent ventures," said Noorjehan.

With Goa slated to hold the International Film Festival in November, the official is expecting repeat orders from the Goa authorities.

Similarly, depending on the popularity of Jassi, there could be a repeat order for printing more special covers.

On Oct 10, the Maharashtra Postal Department would be releasing a commemorative stamp on cinema legend Guru Dutt. Nargis and Raj Kapoor are some of the other film personalities who have been honoured with a stamp.