Kamlesh Chand, Deputy Director General (personnel), launched the second phase of `Project Arrow’ here on Saturday. Three post offices (Kanpur GPO, Nawabganj and Cantt) were selected for modernisation and computerisation.
Read MoreRising inflation badly hit the country’s postal sector last year, said Q-Post chairman Ali Mohamed al-Ali yesterday.
The chairman said the country’s postal corporation suffered heavily in 2007 because of the unprecedented inflation witnessed by Qatar.
Al-Ali said premises that the Q-Post used to acquire for as low as Q R1,500 a month for its operations in the city or suburbs was now costing at least five times more.
“As a result, our overheads on various fronts have increased considerably.”
The chairman also informed that the pay rise the Q-Post gave to its staff, both nationals and expatriates, in December 2006 too had taken a heavy toll on the corporation’s operations.
Al-Ali said the annual salary bills of the staff alone amounted to QR65mn.
Answering another query, the chairman said the postal corporation used to receive a financial support of QR52mn a year from the government until a few years ago. “That is no longer there. The absence of such financial support from the government had hit our operations hard.”
The implementation of e-cash in government transactions has also hit the corporation badly as revenues from the sales of tax and other revenue stamps that it used to receive had started going directly to the government, said al-Ali.
Despite all these, the corporation is making efforts to be self-reliant through the diversification of its businesses in a highly competitive environment, said al-Ali.
The chairman pointed out that in all large countries where the postal sector is still active; the governments had provided at least 80 pct budgetary support to their operations.
As part of modernisation drive, the Department of Posts (DoP) will mechanise its sorting system in metros and other cities, set up national mail grid and take four aircraft on lease to deliver mails in the quickest possible time.
“Currently, Chennai and Mumbai Circles have machines that are 10 years old and have not reached their full capacity. Besides, they do not have higher capacity. With manual intervention around 2,000 mails are being sorted out in seven and a half hours daily, whereas the sorting machines in Italy and the U.S. have capacities to sort out around 40,000 to 50,000 mails a day,” Postal Services Board Member (Operation and Marketing) K. Noorjehan told The Hindu on Wednesday.
Apart from China, Postal Services departments in major countries use both bar-coding and optical character recognition (OCR) method to sort out mails. India will use both technologies, since it has several languages and character recognition is complicated in certain cases.
Read MoreMr. I.M.G. Khan, Director General of India Post and Mr. Ibrahim Karam Ali Bin Karam, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Post, recently signed an agreement in Dubai, putting in place a system that will allow UAE residents to transfer money speedily to any part of India through India’s postal network, the largest in the world.
Customers sending money to India through Emirates Post offices will have two options. They can either have the money delivered to the addressee’s residence, or ask the addressee to collect the money from any authorized post office in India. On the other hand, Money Orders sent from India through India Post will be payable at post offices in the UAE.
The agreement stipulates that a single Money Order issued by Emirates Post for payment in India shall not exceed USD 2,500 or its equivalent. It also lays down that only 12 Money Orders addressed to one beneficiary will be allowed in a calendar year. Amounts of less than 50,000 Indian Rupees will be paid in cash, and those exceeding 50,000 Indian Rupees will be payable by cheque.
In India, the electronic Money Orders payable at post office counters will be delivered the same day at main post offices. In the case of Money Orders payable at addresses destination, the delivery will be within two days through the IFS network. Outside the IS network, the delivery will take place within five days.
If the money is sent from India to the UAE, the amount can be collected the same day at Emirates Post offices.
The IFS-based International Express Money Order is a reliable, adaptable and easy-to-use tool and can be installed in the remotest areas of the world. The UPU anticipates that financial services could generate up to 50 per cent of a country’s postal revenue, and by promoting IFS, the dominance of big players could be reduced, thus offering customers, especially migrant workers, a cost-effective system of money transfer.
Read MoreIMG Khan, Secretary to the Department of Posts aid the Universal Postal Union (UPU) is likely to prefer India’s Department of Posts, one of the biggest postal services in the world, for outsourcing postal services across the world.
In his inaugural address after laying the foundation stone for the Technology Development Centre on the Postal Training Centre campus here, Khan said he held talks with the Director General of Universal Postal Union, Switzerland, and informed him that the Union could decentralise its services to India.
“The India Post is capable of taking the challenge and help provide technology services, maitain and implement them,” he stated. The secretary said the software technology developed at the PTC in Mysore had gone overseas.
Soon, the South Asia Postal Union will come into existence. India will be in a position to offer more technological solutions and services for the World when the Technology Development Centre in Mysore operates to its full strength.
The Director General of Universal Postal Union was positive on India’s strengths. The UPU, in all probability, will decentralise its services to India Post soon, he hoped.
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