India Post plans diversification
The neighbourhood post office will soon turn into a one-stop-shop for making all your routine bill payments – including service tax and road tax. That’s not all. India Post will soon also be the access point for availing Right to Information services and getting registered on the electoral rolls.
Fresh from the success – both in terms of turnout and financial gains – of being a collection point for filing income tax returns, India Post intends to look beyond just postal services to shore up revenues. India Post, officials say, is in talks to conclude agreements with the Centre, state governments, NGOs and even a corporate entity, to facilitate access to information and offer all kinds of services to citizens all over the country.
“Under the proposed business model, while India Post will provide space for such service centres through its network of 1,55,566 post offices spread across the country, NGOs or private players will provide hardware and uninterrupted connectivity and the state governments will ensure that citizens can avail majority of services at these outlets,” says department of posts GM (marketing) RRP Singh.
India Post expects these services to account for nearly 20-30% of its profits. “This could even go up to over 40% depending on size of the corporate entity availing postal department’s network to serve its customers,” he adds.
As a first step, DoP has tied up with Jaikisan.org – an NGO working on rural computerisation – in Uttaranchal and Rajasthan to run these service centres there. “With each post office stationed within a radius of 2.5 km and catering to 6,900 people on daily basis, DoP is well positioned to serve the entire populace of India, and rural India which has always been in need of such service centres,” says Singh. Services would range from collecting service tax and road tax to being a point for clearing government dues and paying all kinds of bills. Singh says the exercise is part of a series of initiatives to do away with India Post’s deficit of Rs 1,100 crore by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan.
