• There are 1,64,987 post offices (Head Post Offices, Sub-Post Offices and Branch Post Offices) operational in the country. Out of these, 15,823 post offices are functioning in urban areas and 1,49,164 post offices are functioning in rural areas.

• The post offices in rural areas, complemented by the India Post Payment Bank, and around 2.4 lakh Gramin Dak Sevaks, are providing digitally-enabled postal, financial and citizen-centric services.

• All departmental post offices in the country have been computerised and networked under the Information Technology (IT) Modernisation Project. 

• Under IT 2.0, Branch Post Offices functioning in rural areas of the country have been provided with mobile devices for carrying out online postal, financial and insurance transactions.

• All post offices in the country are functioning with core banking solutions. 

The following facilities are available to customers:

i) Internet banking and mobile banking.

ii) National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT)/ Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) services for transfer of funds.

iii) Electronic Clearing Services (ECS) facility – for crediting the interest & maturity amount in bank accounts.

iv) e-Passbook facility to view the balance and mini-statement.

v) India Post Payments Bank – Post Office Savings Accounts linkage service for all types of digital transactions.

vi) Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and Citizen Centric Services like Aadhaar enrolment and updation.

• As many as 1,63,939 post offices have been enabled to provide banking and other digital services under the India Post Payments Bank.

• India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) provides digital and paperless banking, Aadhaar enabled Payments System (AePS), Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) facility and assisted digital services.

• Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) scheme has been designed to provide affordable insurance coverage to people in rural areas.

Steps taken to connect widespread network of post offices with online business and expand its access to the market are as follows:

1) The postal department, with its extensive reach, provides complete solutions from induction, transmission and delivery of consignments across the country. Various value-added services like insurance, track and trace, cash on delivery, Application Programming Interface (API) integration, Management Information System (MIS) dashboard, Book Now Pay Later facility (BNPL).

2) A dedicated national road transport network has been established to enhance connectivity to tier-2 and tier-3 towns, serving as a critical infrastructure initiative that extends e-commerce benefits to urban and rural areas. These are further supplemented by state-level transport routes.

3) To strengthen last-mile delivery, nodal delivery centres have been set up for exclusive and expedited parcel distribution using mechanized modes of transport.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)