Adjudged
the best article and awarded 1st Prize
in 29th All India Conference of
AIPEU, Group-C, CHQ
held
at Thiruvanthapuram from 10.03.2013 to 13.03.2013
(
Published in Bhartiya Post, June-2013 issue )
By Bruhaspati Samal
Divnl.
Secy., AIPEU, Gr.-C, Bhubaneswar ( Odisha)
eMail:bsamalbbsr@gmail.com
Glorious Background and There After:
“It makes the Post Office what under any other system it never can be
the unrestricted means of diffusing knowledge, extending commerce and promoting
in every way the social and intellectual improvement of the people” stated
Lord Dalhousie, the father of India Post in his Minute dated 30th
December, 1851. To prove this statement, honestly, if one searches about an
organization which serves India, the land of heterogeneous racial,
lingual, religious, and social culture upholding its rich cultural heritage
through religious pluralism with Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Budhists,
Jains etc. sharing their sorrows and happiness in 1652 mother tongues inclusive of 18 constitutional languages door
to door and protects the national unity, social cohesion, secular and federal
structure and democratic ethos, certainly, the name of India Post comes to
mind. Competently assisting the rulers, elite and mercantile community in its
various forms in ancient and medieval times, it has conveniently served both
the British rulers and general public in
modern times as a forceful organization in raising national and political
consciousness. Long before the times of
email and mobile phones, pigeons, barefoot runners and bullock carts were used
to carry messages from one part of India to another. The mail-runner in earlier
times not only carried people's messages but their emotions and hopes. Without
caring for the dense forests, wild beasts, intense heat, heavy shower or
highway robber, they used to march ahead with belled spears and serve the
mankind heart and soul. Prior to independence, India Post, through a limited
work force could be able to develop a vast network of communication even before the Railways and
Telephones were introduced with wide spread impact on the socio-economic life of the nation through
efficient and prompt service.
From pigeon
to post, India Post has traveled a long way with the passage of time. From
23,344 post offices primarily opened in urban areas prior to independence catering
to the needs of Britishers for development of their trade and exercising
control over their vast Indian possessions with one post office serving 15038
persons covering an area of 53 square miles to 1,54,979 post offices (139182 i.e.
89.81% in rural area and 15797 i.e. 10.19% in urban area ) having 4.75 lakh
employees (2.06 lakh Departmental and 2.69 lakh Gramin Dak Sewak) as on 31.3.2010,
India Post has registered nearly a seven fold growth during the period of last seven
decades focusing its expansion to rural areas and thus has been acknowledged as
the largest postal network in the world
with one post office serving 7176 people in average (5682 in rural area and
20346 in urban area) covering an area of approximately 21.2 sq. kms and
providing postal facilities within reach
of every citizen in the country at affordable prices adopting every mode of
transmission from bare foot to air route with recorded delivery of 1,575 crore mails every year.
Challenging Transformation
of India Post to Protect the Future:
But the days
are gone. Passing through ages, India Post has never remained as a service Department. While it is providing poor man’s
service like post cards etc. on subsidized rate on one hand, it is charging the
corporate sector in commercial rates on the other and earning revenue to meet
its own expenses by running other products and services, both postal and non-postal
for the common man. Due to emergence of electronic alternatives, more demanding
customers, presence of organized / unorganized couriers for mail conveyance,
financial players like banks and insurance companies and above all the
challenges of globalization, corporatization and liberalization, India Post is
now facing competition which has compelled it to be commercial day by day
rather than remaining as a full public utility service department. Thus, to
meet the challenges and to face the competitors on one hand and to prove itself as an efficient and reliable communication network
as the main component of the communication infrastructure for playing a crucial role in the socio-economic
development and integration of the
country on the other, the Postal
department is doing a lot of things other than just delivering letters aiming
for a transformation with re-engineering of Business Processes and making it
compatible to suit the new ICT solutions
and evolving new processes based on customer needs.
A. Business Development:
Going beyond
its traditional products and services of sale of stamps and stationery, booking
and delivery of letters/parcels etc., India Post, through establishment of a
Business Directorate has introduced several new products and services viz.,
Speed Post, Express Parcel Post, Business Post, Media Post, Retail Post, Speed
Post Passport Service, Direct Post, Bill Mail Service, Logistic Post, ePost,
iMO, ePayment, World Net Express etc. which cater to the need of every citizen.
National Postal Policy has been formulated to develop services that assist,
facilitate, enhance and quicken the process of development aimed at inclusive
growth and to reposition India Post to become a self-sufficient, credible,
efficient, quick and cost–effective provider of these services. Thus, it is
just trying to do more than what it can to stay relevant today. Undoubtedly, it is a big challenge for the
Department.
To cater the
needs of NRI dependent families
in India, visiting International tourists and foreign
students studying in India, the Department in collaboration with
the Western Union Financial Services, USA operates International Money Transfer
Service through the post offices in India
which enables instantaneous remittance of
money from 185 countries to India. In January 2006, an on‐line
web‐based domestic money transmission service
called iMO was launched which enables the customer to receive money in minutes
from any of the 2175 identified post offices for the purpose. The electronic
money order, i.e. e MO which has been launched in October 2008, facilitates
transmission of ordinary money orders from all the computerized post offices
through electronic media without any extra charge. The Department of
Posts entered into an International Cooperation Agreement with Money Gram
Payment Systems, USA to offer to the general public the Money Gram
International Money Transfer Service through selected Post Offices in
India. This service has been launched on 29th September 2011. e‐Payment is a
'Many to One' service through which bills and taxes etc. are paid by customers
in 14000 Post Offices across the country and will soon be extended to all computerized Post Offices. The Department of
Posts introduced ECS scheme on 9th August
2003 which facilitates depositors to get
MIS interest automatically transferred and credited into their SB
account on the due dates at the designated Bank of their choice.
B. I T Modernization :
Briefing the Department’s long journey from pigeon post to e-post,
it is evident that the Department of Posts actively entered into the digital
era through counter mechanization installing 102 personal computer-based MPCMs
in 22 selected post offices during the year 1990 – 91 and conceived the Project Arrow concept in April, 2008 under
“Look & Feel Good” concept. During
2008-09, 45 post offices were computerized, computer hardware was upgraded in
1847 post offices and 500 post offices were modernized under Project
Arrow. During 2009 -10, 2920 post
offices were computerized, computer hardware was upgraded in 92 post offices
and 500 post offices were modernized under Project Arrow. As on 31.03.2010, out of 25563 departmental
post offices, 14415 POs including those in the rural areas have been
computerized. 1304 Post Offices have been networked through leased lines so far
with the National Data Centre. Further 5170 Post Offices have been networked
through broad band. The XIth Plan proposal includes computerization and
networking of remaining 10841 departmental Post Offices and all the 129416 Branch
Post Offices.
Being the
oldest and largest banking institution in the country, Post Office Savings Bank
operates more than 240 million Savings Accounts and the outstanding balance
under all the eight national savings schemes (SB, RD, RD, MIS, SCSS, PPF, NSC
& KVP) is Rs.5828329.6 million as on 31.03.2010. Not to lose such a large
number of customers due to lack of modernization and non-availability of the
services of ATMs, mobile banking and demat facilities on one hand and for
providing Any‐where, Any‐time and Any
branch banking on the other, Core Banking Solutions (CBS) has been included in
the 11th Five Year Plan with a financial outlay of Rs. 106 crores
for development of CBS software and other related activities.
C. Potential Service Provider
:
The
Department of Posts is also emerging as a potential service provider to other
organizations. To meet the challenges, India Post has revolutionized the
way it used to function before adopting varieties of products and services
starting from selling of movie tickets in urban area to agriculture insurance
in rural area. Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MOSP) has
entrusted the job of collecting statistics for ascertaining the Rural Price
Index from 1183 post offices across the country with effect from Oct 2009.
Railway Ministry and the Department of Posts have signed a memorandum of
understanding for providing railway ticket booking services at the post
offices. The Department of Posts is
discharging the responsibility to disburse the wages to NREGS beneficiaries
through Post Office Savings Bank account. Currently operational in 19 Postal
Circles comprising of 21 States, the scheme is operational through 90,000 post
offices. The Department of Posts in collaboration with NABARD is providing the
facility of micro‐credit to
Self Help Groups (SHGs) through identified post offices on agency
basis. Department of Posts has signed an agreement on 17.9.08 with ICICI
Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd. to retail their Pension Products through
select Post Offices on Referral Model.
India Post introduced a new international air express service known as
World Net Express on 26.11.2008. The service is available at selected post
offices for more than 220 countries. India Post has tied up with State Bank of
India to sell its assets and liability products through identified post
offices. Old Age Pension is being paid through
Post Office Savings Accounts and Money Orders. As a tie‐up
with Reliance Money Limited, sale of gold coins has been launched on 15th
October, 2008 as part of retail post in selected post offices. The Department of Posts has been assisting
other public authorities under the Central Government in implementing the RTI
Act by providing services of its designated Central Assistant Public
Information Officers (CAPIOs). For this, Sub Post Masters at Tehsil level act
as the Central Assistant Public Information officer (CAPIO) for accepting RTI
requests and appeals from all central Government Departments. Under a partnership with Deutsche Post,
Money Order Videsh was launched by India Post on 24.10.2009 to facilitate
remittances to foreign countries and receiving of remittances from foreign
countries through Post Office.
Apprehensions
& Suggestions for Prospective Future:
As a result
of these challenges, all operational, administrative and accounting units of
this vast organization are being affected presently and will be affected in
future with new management system. The Circles, Regions, Divisions and Post Offices
are dealing with implementation of multiple solutions. Therefore, employees
from all levels are inducted to the changes for capacity building, augmenting
training infrastructure, achieving computer literacy at all levels etc. to run
a massive change management plan.
But while
analyzing the processes the Department has adopted to meet the challenges and
to secure the future of India Post, the following shortcomings are noticed which
are required to be taken care of.
1. The
National Postal Policy broadly speaks that urban postal and financial services
are essential in order to maintain the flow of funds between urban and rural
residents and it is necessary to ensure safe and quick transmission of moneys. Since
the competitors for such urban services are aggressive and efficient private
players, India Post should enhance and improve its delivery of urban services
in order to offer comparative standards of performance. But contradictorily, now
there is a move by India Post for rationalization of postal network in urban
areas by way of relocation / merger of 9797 single / double handed post
offices. This apart the Department has also initiated action for abolition of
17093 unfilled posts. The proposed closure of 9797 Post offices means reduction of about 36% of
the existing postal network. The arguments put forward by the Department
justifying such mass-scale closure/merger/relocation cannot be accepted when
all other private couriers and companies are competing to canvass customers of
India Post by opening more and more outlets in the urban areas for extending
their services to the doorstep of such customers. It is apprehended that in the name of
rationalization and optimization, India Post is giving more space to the
private companies for occupying more share in the mail market segment. Large scale closure of Post Offices and RMS
offices will not only lead to inconvenience to the public leading to
discontentment but also adversely affect the interest of the employees. The
Department needs to look after this aspect very carefully before
implementation.
2. To face the twin challenges of increasing
competition and continuing advances in communication technology, especially in
mobile telephony and the Internet and to provide the best-in-class customer
services, India Posts has undertaken an
end to end IT Modernization project to equip itself with requisite modern tools
and technologies. With key objective to Modernize and computerize of all Post Offices
in the country including Branch Post Offices in rural areas, India Post 2012
aims at transforming the DoP into a “Technology Enabled, Self-Reliant Market
Leader”.
Two important things are being overlooked by the
Department under IT Modernization Project.
a. Out
of 154979 post office, 129416 branch post offices (83.50%) are in rural areas
which are managed by Gramin Dak Sewaks with minimum qualification of
Matriculate or below and without any technical knowledge. In addition, barring a
few new entrants, most of the regular departmental senior officials don’t know
the fundamentals of computer. Contradictorily, the present mode of computer
literacy and training programme of India Post only aims at imparting training
on different modules / packages in operation by the Department just to suit its
needs only without considering the needs of the employees. There is no plan to redesign the computer
training programmes by the Department which may stand in the way of effective
service delivery clearly satisfying the standards fixed in the Citizen Charter.
b. Most of the Branch Post Offices
functioning in the rent free accommodations provided by the BPMs are completely
unsuitable for computer networking. The basic civil and electrical works needed
for computerization have been witnessed to be of sub-standard nature in
Departmental post offices most of which are functioning on rented buildings
owned by private people. So modernization of all such post office buildings
over which the Department has no control may be a myth.
Thus, such
deficiencies need to be taken care of failing which the aims and objectives of
IT Project, 2012 may be futile in future in the hands of untrained
non-technical employees and in private rented buildings.
3. The
draft Corporate Plan outlined by India Post seems not to be comprehensive.
Implementing large scale closure of post offices, it will be hypothetical to
provide basic postal facilities within easy reach of all people and businesses
by 2013-14. Keeping the rates of
interest on various POSB Schemes lower than banks, it is just theoretical to
increase financial inclusion of the unbanked population by at least 10% by the
year 2013-14. Still remaining partly
commercial and partly service and awaiting to address the issue relating to
definition and cost of its Universal Service Obligation, it is really imaginary
to attain self-sufficiency by 2013-14. The quality of service delivery
standards outlined in the Corporate Plan of India Post and guaranteed under the
Citizen Charter to the members of Public is witnessed to be affected greatly
after introduction of National Speed Post Hubs and L 1 and L 2 hubs for
Registered and Un-registered mails. Thus, India Post needs to adopt different
strategy with a comprehensive corporate plan to secure the future of the
Department and its employees.
4. Amendment
of Indian Post Office Act with a view to legalize private courier services will
certainly have an adverse impact on the monopoly of India Post in future. The
proposed Postal Regulatory Authority will snatch away the monopoly of the
Department in handling postal articles in future. When the main spirit behind
the introduction of Post Office Act was aimed at having effective control of
their dominions by the allies, introduction of a fresh Act to bring complete elimination
of the private courier agencies is more desirable now for better national
interest rather than a move to legalize their business activities.
5. The Strategic Plan of India Post
includes, inter alia, “Neat, clean and spacious post offices “ and “Dynamic Queue Management”. Unfortunately, it is quite evident that most
of the post offices especially functioning in rented buildings are highly below
the prescribed schedule of accommodation . The mail, sorting, delivery and
counter hall are witnessed to be functioning in a single room in most of the
post offices. Similarly, the queue management system has been totally ignored
in respect of the Project Arrow post offices
under Phase – I and II. When customers are attending the counters at
unpredictable places forming unstructured queues , high and standardized
quality service is seriously affected. Thus the present Strategic Plan of India Post needs to be redefined so that India Post which has touched the
lives of every citizen for more than 150 years will continue to enjoy the trust
and support of its customers and stakeholders in future.
6. The vision of the Result Framework
Document (RFD) for India Post (2011-12) specifies that its products and
services will be the customers’ first choice. This can only be possible if
India Post will promote its own mail, financial and insurance products instead
of promoting the products and services of outside agencies, viz, ICICI
Prudential, UTI etc More revenue will be
earned if India Post does directly any business instead of doing through
intermediaries as is being done for sale of Gold Coin. The trust of the general
public with India Post need not be exploited in any manner failing which the
future of India Post may be at stake.
7. In
spite of recent hikes of the rates of interests in Post Office Small Savings
Schemes twice, i. e. once from 01.01.2011 and once again from 01.04.2012, the
same has still remained unexpectedly lower than its financial competitors
affecting the S B transactions from which the Department earns nearly 48% of
its total income. The Department does
not find any financial autonomy and commercial flexibility to respond to market
forces quickly and efficiently since it is functioning as a corporate agent of
the Ministry of Finance. Full autonomy for operationalization of all POSB
Schemes needs to be retained with India Post.
8. India
Post aims at providing new and better services on par with global industry
standards by computerizing and networking of all post offices using Central
Server based system which may affect the present status of Head Post Offices
and Accounts Offices. It is apprehended that the Department may attempt in
future to decentralize the postal accounts shifting over to accrual basis
accounting. When full computerization will make the post offices paperless,
establishments like the Postal Stores Depots and Postal Printing Press in the
present form may be redundant in future. Thus, India Post awaits a great
structural redesigning in future.
9. The
Technology Wing and Business Development Cell of India Post are neither managed
by Technically and Management qualified personnel nor there is a plan for
direct recruitment of such personnel from open market. Leading such wings by
non-professionals may not bring the targeted result for which the Department is
likely to suffer in future.
10. The
basis of any policy of sustainability and growth, especially of labour
intensive activities, is the productivity, capacity and morale of its
personnel. But as seen, the employees at grass root level who are directly
responsible for smooth implementation of all the policies and decisions are
highly depressed. It is witnessed that increased productivity and higher
performance are not receiving appropriate incentives in the Department and the
interests of the workforce of India Post are not being safeguarded. The demands
of the Staff Side with scientific approaches to meet the future challenges are
either overlooked or totally sidelined and the department is blindly going
ahead with unscientific proposals recommended by outside agencies. While
progress is being expected and monitored by the Department through Public
Private Partnership, avoidance to Staff Side is not at all a good sign for
future progress of India Post.
Conclusion:
When the possibility of the existence of a civilized state cannot be
conceived without the cooperation of this vast organization of effective communication
which has legitimately conquered so important place in Indian social, political,
religious, cultural and economic atmosphere, there can be no threat to India
Post in future provided the Department works with the collective mindset of the
employees, clients, customers and vendors paying due honour to their voice for rights, social protection and
decision-making which are the basic components of economic growth since in the
era of globalization, an organization will only sustain if it wins the confidence
of all the stakeholders. Then only, the commitment of India Post to
meeting the challenges of the economy and to ensure connectivity, communication
and financial services to every citizen can be found feasible.
To conclude,
it can only be said that since India Post has occupied the nervous system which
transmits the words and thoughts of the nation, its significance can be better
understood by visualizing its absence. All stakeholders should work
consistently so that the existence of this vast organization may not be
jeopardized.
*****
