For more than 150 years, the Department of Posts (DoP) has been the backbone of the country’s communication and has played a crucial role in the country’s social economic development.  It touches the lives of Indian citizens in many ways: delivering mails, accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes, providing life insurance cover under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) and providing retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc.

In the year 2020, the Department strengthened its supply chain through capacity upgradation and expanding Road Transport Network. It played important role in countering impact of COVID-19 pandemic by enabling doorstep delivery of financial services and medicines etc.

Highlights

    1. Supply Chain and e-Commerce: Mail, Express Services and Parcel

    • Capacity upgradation: Parcel handling capacity has increased from 6.0 crore per annum to 7.5 crore per annum.

    • Road Transport Network: National level dedicated Road Transport Network rolled out on 56 routes touching 80 cities. Approx. 15000 bags containing 75 tonnes of parcels are being carried daily through the setup network.

    • Improvement in Pan – India Average Transit Time for Speed Post: Average Transit time of Speed Post reduced from 105 hrs. in July,2019 to 81 hrs. in Feb,2020.

    • Real–Time updation of Delivery: Postman Mobile App implemented in 1.47 Lakh POs including 98,454 post offices in rural areas. Real time delivery status of 14 crore Speed Post and Registered articles done through the Postman Mobile App.

    • E-Commerce exports: ‘Dak Ghar Niryat Kendra’ are being established at around 800 Post Offices covering all District headquarters to promote exports of MSMEs.

    • International Tracked Packet Service extended to 3 more countries Mongolia, Bhutan and Sri Lanka taking the total from 12 to 15 countries.

    2. Banking Services and Financial Inclusion

        a. Digital Financial empowerment of the public at large

    • DOP serves more than 50 crore POSB customers through 1.56 lakh post offices across length & breadth of the country.

    • It has an outstanding balance of Rs. 10,81,293 crore under Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) Schemes. 

    • The Post Office CBS system is the largest network in the world with 23,483 Post Offices already on this network.

    • Further 1,29,151 Branch Post Offices have been also enabled to access the network on real time basis.

    • The CBS has enabled the DOP in providing 24x7 services through ATMs, Internet & Mobile Banking.

        b. Financial Empowerment of Rural Populace

            ▪ All the 9 Small Savings Schemes of MoF are available in 1.56 lakh Post Offices. 

            ▪ 5 Schemes, namely, Monthly Income Scheme, Senior Citizens Savings Scheme, Public Provident Fund, National Savings Certificate & Kisan Vikas Patra have been introduced in BOs.

            ▪ People living in rural India will not be required to come to town & cities to do any Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) transaction.

            ▪ The same will be available at their doorstep through local Branch Post Offices.

        c. Economic Empowerment of Girl Child

            ▪ Sukanya Samriddhi Account (SSA) scheme is also known as girl child prosperity scheme and was launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji on 22nd January, 2015.

            ▪ SSA scheme ensures a bright future for girl children and has facilitated them in proper education, marriage expenses and securing their future.

            ▪ A total of 1.83 Crore SukanyaSamriddhi Accounts have been opened with deposits amounting to Rs. 58,822.62 Crore, by the Department of Posts, till November, 2020 since introduction of the scheme.

        d. Insurance and Pension coverage of masses at reasonable rates

            ▪ The PM Jan Suraksha Schemes, namely, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha BimaYojana (PMSBY), Pradhan MantriJeewanJyotiBimaYojana (PMJJBY) & Atal Pension Yojana (APY) were launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister in May, 2015.

            ▪ The DOP had made 3.2 Lakh Atal Pension Yojana (APY), 5.9 Lakh Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and 1.17 crore Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) enrolments so far.

            ▪ Simplified processing of deceased claim cases to expedite deceased claim settlement process and help claimants to get the claim amount expeditiously.

        e. Post Bank of India

            ▪ More than 1.36 Lakhs Access Points enables for India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) transactions thus creating largest single bank network across the country.

            ▪ More than 2.90 Lakhs Gramin Dak Sewaks (GDS) and Postmen enables to act as Doorstep Banking Service Providers taking Banking services to the doorstep.

            ▪ More than 3.61 crore people benefitted from Aadhar enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions involving an amount of Rs. 7,667 crore, majority of them during COVID-19 lockdown.

        f. Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT)

            ▪ More than 3.99 crores transactions were performed involving an amount of Rs. 4,040 crore for a period from January, 2020 to November, 2020.

            ▪ Disbursed benefits of more than 275 schemes of different Ministries to beneficiaries including those in remote and rural areas.

        g. Digital Inclusion

            ▪ 1,29,159 Branch Post offices are using SIM based handheld POS devices.

            ▪ 40 crore digital transactions have been facilitated through promotion of Remotely Managed Franking Machines for a period from January, 2020 to November, 2020.

    3. Postal Life Insurance (PLI)/Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI)

        ◦ Bonus of PLI for the financial years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 have been declared in the month of March, 2020.

        ◦ A total of 26,54,652 transactions were done in respect of PLI/RPLI amounting to Rs. 5,15,14,03,966/- in the month of April, 2020, inspite of nation-wide lockdown and extension of premium payment period to June, 2020.

        ◦ Since, April, 2020, there has been 48% increase in monthly PLI/RPLI online transactions.

        ◦ In Spite of lockdown and severe restrictions on transportation and staff attendance in offices, more than 90% of Central Processing Centres (CPCs) across the country were functional, more than 70,000 new proposals were processed and more than 40,000 claims were sanctioned in the month of April, 2020.

        ◦ Wirecard, the then existing payment gateway has been replaced by PayU for online premia payment, offering multiple channel of payment by customers, namely Debit Card, Credit Card, Net Banking, Wallets and UPI.

        ◦ To simplify the process of acceptance of new proposals and facilitate settlement of claims within citizen charter’ norms, approver limits for acceptance of new proposals and settlements of claims have been revised and has been decentralized to Head Post Office/GPO/Divisional Level.

        ◦ The process of settlement of Death Claim, Maturity Claim and handing of Loan requests in PLI/RPLI has been simplified by prescribing Comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) for each.

        ◦ To facilitate faster processing of death claim cases, Rule 39 of PLI (Postal Life Insurance) Rules, 2011 has been amended keeping in line with the existing Industry practice.

        ◦ A new version of DARPAN-PLI App has been deployed in Core Integration System (CIS) with facility of processing various financial and non-financial requests of PLI/RPLI insurants at level of 127115 Branch Post Officesincluding those in remote and rural areas.

        ◦ Business Performance of PLI and RPLI:As on 30-11-2020, there were a total of 96.79 lakh active PLI and RPLI policies with an aggregate sum assured of Rs. 2.05 lakh crores.

        ◦ Investment Functions of PLI / RPLI Fund:The total corpus of PLI / RPLI fund has reached Rs 1.13 lakh crore by 30-11-2020.

        ◦ Bima Gram Yojana:From January, 2020 to November, 2020, 17,092 villages brought under the coverage of Bima Gram Yojana (BGY). Each BGY village has at least 100 households covered by one RPLI policy.

    4. Citizen Centric Services

        ◦ Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (PoPSK): 426PoPSKs have been made operational till date, of which 02 PoPSKs opened in 2020 namely (i) Seoni, Madhya Pradesh and (ii) Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Island. 7,27,329 applications have been processed through PoPSKs from January, 2020 to November, 2020.

        ◦ Aadhar Enrolment and Updation Centres: More than 42,000 Postal Officials/MTS/GDS have been trained/certified to perform Aadhaar operations. 99,25,630requests for enrollments / updations have been processed by these Centres from January, 2020 to November, 2020.

        ◦ A total no of 3,43,296 Gangajal Bottles have been supplied for the period from January, 2020 to November, 2020.

        ◦ Digital Advancement of Rural Post Offices for a New India (DARPAN): Carried out 17.41 crores online Postal and financial transactions involving Rs. 23,251/- crores for a period from January, 2020 to November, 2020 through 1.29 lakh Branch Post Offices in the rural areas of the country. More than 1.5 crores transactions per month are taking place through DARPAN devices.

        ◦ PO-CSC (Post Office-Common Service Centres): 10136 Post Offices are now providing services of Common Service Centres through the Digital Sewa portal of CSC. As on 30.11.2020, 48234 transactions worth Rs. 4.62 Crore were delivered through these Post Offices.

        ◦ Opening of new Branch Post Offices (BOs) in 90 identified Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts in the country

    5. Public Grievances

        ◦ Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)

        ◦ Social Media Cell: Social media cell monitors the complaints sent to all the Circles on daily basis. The average first response time is approximately 4 hours.

        ◦ India Post Call Centre (IPCC): IPCC is working in the four languages namely Hindi, English, Odia and Bengali for the convenience of the citizens. 36,72,136 calls were received in IPCC from 01.01.2020 to 30.11.2020.

        ◦ Implementation of Dynamic Queue Management System (DQMS) in Post Offices. The Objectives & scope of DQMS are given below:

            ▪ To reduce waiting time.

            ▪ To increase processing capacity.

            ▪ To reduce miscommunication among customers.

            ▪ To give a comfort level to staff and customers.

            ▪ To monitor customer flow.

    6. Initiatives taken by the Department in the COVID-l9 situation

        ◦ The vast network of post offices had been galvanized to respond to the challenges in coordination with State Governments and local bodies. Control Rooms at India Post HQ and Circle (State) HQs were established to manage, receive and respond for immediate needs.

        ◦ Road Transport Network connecting 56 routes and 75 cities was commenced in April, 2020 utilizing Departmental Mail Vans. The network came handy to delivery essentials, medicines and medical equipment including ventilators, defibrillators, COVID 19 testing kits, masks and PPE kits.

        ◦ Around 36,000 tonnes of material were delivered through postal channels which also include use of Parcel Trains.

        ◦ During lockdown and initial phase of unlocking more than 33.95 crore transactions valuing around Rs. 7.02 lakh crore were made through POSB accounts. Around 78 lakh POSB ATM transactions amounting to Rs. 2389 crore were made.

        ◦ India Post tied-ups with Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, DirectorGeneral of Health Services and a number of private firms and online pharmaceutical companies for delivery of medicines from their facilities to hospitals and beneficiaries.

        ◦ During COVID period, Rs. 5200 crore disbursed to 2.5 crore beneficiaries through AePS at the doorstep who were not able to access banking facilities.

        ◦ 31 crore financial transactions enabled during COVID19 period through Post Office and IPPB accounts.

        ◦ Taking initiative in public interest, special features have been added to Post info App for accepting emergent service requests from people.

        ◦ Activated Mobile Post Offices across the country to provide basic postal services, food and masks distribution etc.

        ◦ Free distribution of around 10 lakhs food and ration packets was made to the needy.

        ◦ Launched dedicated Road Transport Network in April, 2020 on 56 long haul routes and connected farm produce of farmers to markets by activating postal supply chain.

        ◦ Special Covers, Post Cards and Special Impressions were issued with messages to create awareness about social distancing and to express gratitude to Corona Warriors.

        ◦ CPGRAMS Portal: A separate category for 'COVID-19' grievances was created on CPGRAMS to address and monitor grievances of the public with regard to their postal needs in the backdrop of the pandemic.

        ◦ Separate category of COVID 19 Grievances provided on the Online portal. IPPC services over 25 Lakh calls during COVID 19 lockdown.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)