New Delhi, Aug 29:
Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal has called
for restructuring of 150-year-old Department of Post by separating its
regulatory and services functions to meet challenges of technological
age.
“The postal department should also restructure
itself to meet challenges of 21st century. The Department of Post (DoP)
should look into prospect of bifurcating the Ministry from the regulator
and the operator, just as was done in the telecom sector,” Sibal told
PTI.
He said that the DoP should explore possibility
of having different entities namely policy making, regulator and service
provider.
“No decision has been taken yet. It is all a matter of debate and dialogue at the moment,” Sibal said.
DoP, which has around 5 lakh employees, is responsible for policy making, regulation and providing postal services, at present.
The
over 100-year old Indian Post Office Act bars any individual or entity
from delivering letters for commercial purpose. The business of private
courier companies is built around delivering documents, parcels and
others items which do not fall under the category of ‘letter’.
Sources
in the Ministry said that Sibal held a meeting with DoP officials early
this week on the issue of finanlisation of the National Postal Policy
2012 and asked them to prepare roadmap for restructuring as well.
They said that next meeting on the issue is expected to take place in 15 days.
They said that the Minister, in June, had asked DoP to set up a body to oversee the unbundling of its functions.
An
independent body named Postal Development Board (PDB) will be
responsible for the overall development and governance of the postal
sector, they added. The PDB will also draw a road-map for unbundling of
postal department functions.
The Minister had also
instructed DoP to constitute a Postal Advisory Board (PAB), in line with
Telecom Commission, which should have representation from Government,
industry players, academics and other stakeholders, they said. The role
of PAB will be to provide inputs to PDB on policy matters.
The
government in 1997 created the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI) to regulate the sector. Under New Telecom Policy 1999, Government
further restructured DoT by separating service providing function from
it.
Source : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com
Sir,
ReplyDeleteI am a fellow worker in Dept. Of Posts in Orissa Circle. I want to ask certain questions related to outsourcing of departmental work in our department. I deeply concern to this point because the problem which we are facing due to out sourcing are becoming hazardous and punishing in nature to the employees of this department. I need to know whether their is any defined guideline published by the Dept. Of Posts for out sourcing departmental work. If so please mail me that gazette in the following email ID I am giving below. If there is any defined guide line then which areas are covered under this out sourcing and what are the provisions under which these works can be out sourced covering the defined security concern of the departmental job. I will be extremely happy if you kindly respond to this post.
My email Id is-surajdikhit@gmail.com
With hopes of replay and thanks,
Suraj.