Tag: Pakistan Post

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that the Pakistan Post has an excellent countrywide distribution network that needs to be leveraged to cater to the rapidly changing requirements of the people. The Prime Minister said this while chairing a meeting here Mondayto review the performance of Pakistan Post Office. The Prime Minister said that the postal network which covers 90 percent of the people has over the year become underutilized in view of the drastic decline in the volume of mail which was the bulk of its operation in the past.

The Prime Minister said that Pakistan Post should now focus on express delivery of mail, collection of utility bills and fast money transfer to stay relevant and become a profitable and a viable organization. The Prime Minister said Pakistan Post should be reorganized, restructured and repositioned in line with the best international practices in order to make it more autonomous and flexible in decision-making.

The Prime Minister said Ministry of Communications should set up a Task Force to do the need analysis, decide and recommend changes to revamp Pakistan Post to enable it cater to the needs of today and tomorrow and leverage its untapped potential . He said the Task Force should recommend steps to transform Pakistan Post into an efficient, customer friendly, modern and self-sustainable organization. The Director General, Post Offices Mr. Arshad Khan highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the departments and the opportunities and challenges faced by Pakistan Post.

He said that efforts are being made to revamp the Pakistan Post to enable it meet the challenges of 21st century and become a hub of commercial and social activities.

The Prime Minister appreciated the efforts of the Ministry of Communications and Pakistan Post to bring improvement in the working of Pakistan Post. The meeting was attended among others by Minister for Communication Mr. Shamim Siddiqui, Minister of State for Communication Eng. M. Shahid Jamil Qureshi and senior officials.

Pakistan Post Director General Arshad Khan informed the National Assembly Standing Committee on Communications that measures have been taken to transform Pakistan Post (PP) into a modern organisation through the use of information technology.

The NA committee meeting was held on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Brig (r) Zulfiqar Ahmad Dhillon.

The PP DG informed the committee that out of 85 general post offices (GPOs), 25 GPOs had been computerised while the rest would be computerised by June 2007.

Arshad Khan said that work on military pensions had been computerised in big cites including Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Sargodha and Lahore. He said the process was being presently computerised at 30 GPOs, covering 80 percent of the total military pensions. He said the Pakistan Postal Service had introduced a modernised delivery system to reduce delivery times.

Modernised mail and delivery systems have been arranged to ensure prompt delivery for customers, he added. PP will facilitate consumers in paying utility bills and traffic fines. A separate PIA ticket counterwill also be established at each GPO.

The PP DG informed the committee that inspection cells had been strengthened to avoid corruption and fraud. Committee members Tahir Shah, Syed Gulzar Sibtain, Akhtar Khan Kanju, Dr Rozina Tufail, Afsar Begum, Shahid Hussain Bhutto, Nawab Yousaf Talpur, Mehmood Khan Achakzai and Farooq Azam Malik also attended the meeting.

Pakistan Post has prepared a comprehensive plan to transform this national institution on modern and professional lines, said Chairman Pakistan Postal Services Management Board Arshad Khan. While addressing the operational staff, he further said that this plan envision Pakistan Post as customer-friendly, efficient, modern and yet as a self-sustainable organization and 24 goals and targets have been set to achieve above stated key objectives. While touching some of key elements of new vision plan including human resource development, technology upgradation and process reengineering, he said that improvement in quality of service and credibility has been given highest priority. He also said that plan encompasses incentive based policies to benefit staff and motivate them to discharge their duties in efficient manner. He asked the staff to change market dynamics and emphasized them for service-oriented and customer-friendly culture in order to remain competitive in rapidly changing market situation. He also briefed about departmental courier service and collection of utility bills from doorsteps of the public through postman staff.