Tag: India

Courier Companies want government to relook at PO amendments

Posted by | Aug 23, 2007 | |

Private courier companies have approached telecom minister A Raja demanding that the government hold fresh consultations with the industry before finalizing amendments to the Indian Post Office Act.

Private courier companies are opposed to the proposed amendments to the Post Office Act as it bars them from carrying letters and parcel below 150 gm and also seeks to limit foreign direct investment in the sector to 49 pct. The Bill also envisages that private courier companies who want to deliver letters below this slab (150 gm) be imposed a price multiple, which is five times more than the rates charged by India Post or 2.5 times of Speed Post rates.

The ECI response comes at a time when the ministry of communications under telecom minister A Raja has revived work on amendments to the controversial postal bill. At the same time, the communications ministry is yet to take a call on whether the Bill would be introduced in the current session of parliament. Faced with strong protests from private courier players, the government had put the issue on the backburner for the last two months

Private courier companies also want the government to renegotiate on key issues like creation of a regulator for the postal sector called Mail Regulatory Development Authority and also on the proposal that mandates large courier companies to pay 10 pct of their total revenues as universal social obligation fee as in the telecom sector.

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Courier firms see ray of hope in postal bill

Posted by | Aug 22, 2007 | |

The controversial postal bill that will be introduced by the ministry of communications in the winter session of Parliament may not include an earlier proposal to restrict foreign direct investment (FDI) to 49 per cent in courier services.

At present, 100 per cent FDI is allowed in courier services.

“Internal work has been reinitiated on the draft Indian Post Office Amendment Bill of 2006. The department of post plans to place the bill for approval in the winter session of Parliament,” said officials.

However, the department still has to take a final call on limiting the FDI cap to 49 per cent, officials added.

Department officials feel it is not desirable to disturb a sector which has been attracting FDI in a big way. Foreign players such as Federal Express, TNT and DHL Express have a substantial interest in India. Temasek recently picked up a stake in First Flight, while DHL took over Blue Dart.

Other provisions in the proposed postal bill include prohibiting private courier companies from carrying any letter or parcel below 150 grams and creating a universal service obligation (USO) fund by making companies pay up 10 per cent of their turnover to cross-subsidise services to rural areas.

The bill will allow private courier companies to deliver letters below the stipulated slab of 150 grams but will stipulate that they should do so at five times the rate charged by India Post or 2.5 times that of the speed post.

Private courier companies have opposed these amendments to the bill, terming them “unfair”.

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TNT pilots two zero emission trucks in Rotterdam – First electric delivery vehicles in mainland Europe

Posted by | Aug 21, 2007 | |

Ivo Opstelten (Mayor of Rotterdam and Chairman of the Rotterdam Climate Initiative) and Peter Bakker (CEO of TNT) presented the two Smith electrical trucks which will be piloted in the Rotterdam area as part of the Rotterdam Climate Initiative.

The vehicles, a 3.5-tonne Smith Edison EV and a 9-tonne Smith Newton EV, will operate emission free in congested areas. The pilot is a significant step to contribute to the objective to reduce CO2 emissions by half in Rotterdam by 2025 compared to 1990.

The Edison will be operational around the center of Rotterdam and will make an average of approximately 40 stops for pick up and delivery of documents and small parcels. The Newton will operate in and around the center of Rotterdam and make 15 to 20 stops when in operation. It is in these stop-start conditions where the electric trucks have a great advantage over conventional combustion engines which are at their most inefficient and most polluting.

The green electricity for running these vehicles is certified to be produced by hydropower. This means that operating the vehicles is entirely CO2 neutral.

Electric Vehicles work out the more cost effective option than diesel vans or trucks, when taken over the average commercial vehicle’s 5-year life span. This is due to low fuel costs as electricity costs a fraction of diesel. Further the maintenance costs are lower for an electric vehicle than for a conventional combustion vehicle. The electric vehicle only has four moving parts compared to over a thousand in a diesel drive train.

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Western Union eyes growing remittance market in India

Posted by | Aug 21, 2007 | |

Eyeing the growing remittance market in India, Western Union, a global money-transfer service provider is projecting itself as a safe and reliable medium to transfer money to India.

According to Suvodeep Das, South Asia marketing director, “India has the world’s second largest migrant population, of about 25 million, who stay in different countries across the world. Every year over 7,500,000 migrants get added to this list”.

The number is significant and is next only to China which has 30 million migrant people living across the globe.

Western Union with over 40,000 agent locations in 4,000 towns, cities and villages helps the migrant Indian population (most of whom are from Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala) in sending and receiving money.

Giving example of about one lakh Punjabi farmers engaged in farming in Italy, Das said, “Most of the Indian migrants are blue-collared workers and we help them send money to their loved ones living in India”.
Since a large portion of the remittance market in India is informal, the size of this market becomes difficult to estimate or quantify.

“We are trying to capture this informal market most of which exists in rural India”, he added.

Explaining the safety and reliability of the transactions Das said, “we have a paper trial of all transactions so we can identify both sender and receiver”.

Western Union has registered a growth of 95 pct in the last six quarters in India and agent locations has grown from 3000 in 2001 to 40,000.

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State Bank of India plans a tie-up with post offices to expand rural reach

Posted by | Aug 21, 2007 | |

State Bank of India, the country’s biggest lender, plans to partner with the with India Post to leverage the expansive postal network for providing credit and other services in rural areas.
This was announced by finance minister, P Chidambaram, speaking in the Lok Sabha during the debate on the SBI Amendment Bill, which replaces an ordinance for transferring the Reserve Bank’s stake in SBI to the Union Government.
The alliance will bring banking facilities to even the remotest villages. SBI’s 9000-strong branch network is already the largest in the country. If the branches of its seven associate banks were added to the tally, the total branch network would reach 13,000.
However, these numbers look minuscule in comparison to India Post’s network, which has over 1.5 lakh post offices, a majority of which are in rural areas. Post offices in India already offer a host of services such as savings, insurance, mutual funds, pension and domestic as well as international money transfer.

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