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Friday, August 7, 2015

Postal department to help farmers sell their produce online

The plan is to deploy postmasters in villages to collate details from farmers on their produce and upload the data online for traders to peruse and make decisions.

HYDERABAD: If you are a farmer looking to sell paddy, cotton, or any other farm  produce, take it to the post office. India's postal department is set to launch  a pilot programme that seeks to help farmers sell their produce over the  Internet, that too without spending a paisa on transport. The plan is to deploy  postmasters in villages to collate details from farmers on their produce and  upload the data online for traders to peruse and make decisions.

India  Post, whicIndia Post, which is taking up the role of a mediator here, will launch the  pilot project in two locations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over the next  couple of weeks, said BV Sudhakar, the chief postmaster general of the circle covering the two  Telugu-speaking states.

The initiative is part of India Post's efforts  to put its vast network of post offices and employees into use at a time when  the advent of emails and proliferation of mobile phones, instant chat apps and     express courier services  made its core service of delivering letters mostly irrelevant. The department's  new areas of interest include financial  services and insurance. It is also exploring new-age business opportunities  to generate revenue.

Under the new project, postmasters will use  smartphones to take photos of the farm commodities and upload the details on a  website that will act as a trading platform.
 
"While it is free for farmers, India Post will collect a nominal fee from the buyers, apart  from stipulating a condition that buyers should use the services of India Post  for transporting the farm commodity to the required destination," Sudhakar told  ET. Terming it a first of its kind initiative and a win-win for both farmers and  traders, Sudhakar said that, based on the results of pilot project, the postal  department will decide on extending the service across the country.

An Andhra-based firm, NGIT  Systems, has built the trading platform for India Post. The company has  experience in developing online platforms for farmers to sell, buy and lease  farms, crops, manures, cattle and farming equipment.
The idea of launching an agri-commodity trading platform was arrived at as part  of India Post's asset maximisation strategy wherein it plans on improving  revenue from its existing human and physical assets, including logistics network, said Sudhakar. India Post is looking at  strengthening its logistics infrastructure connecting various commodity markets  in AP and Telangana and between Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru using some 500  trucks, said Sudhakar.

Aimed at encouraging the postmasters in villages to participate in the new  initiative and help improve revenue, the department is devising a special  incentives package and increasing the fleet size based on demand. The  department expects to cover at least a third of these states and is targeting a  minimum Rs 10 crore in revenue from agricommodity trading in the first year.

Sudhakar, who took up several innovative schemes in the circle that were later  replicated across the country, said he was confident of the circle posting a  marginal profit this fiscal year. Effectively using the services of 40,000-plus  employees working across 16,155 post offices, the circle improved the average  per employee revenue to Rs 3.15 lakh last fiscal year from Rs 2.43 lakh the  previous year.


Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

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