Amid today’s communication revolution, post offices too have come a long way from the days of money orders delivered with handwritten notes.
The sending and recording of money orders was computerised in 2008. A customer could opt for various options — electronic money order, instant money order, mobile money order and international money order. However, the volume of money orders despatched has come down and today, nearly 90 per cent of such transactions involve beneficiaries of various State and Central welfare schemes, including old age pension.
A recent rumour that the money order service has been scrapped sent shock waves among postal customers and staff. Recalling those days when postal staff had to manually record the details such as form number and sanctioned amount, J. Srivenkatesh, circle president (C3 union) of National Federation of Postal Employees, said: “People still continue to fill forms manually. But we have switched over to electronic mode of operations.”
Clarifying that there were no plans to withdraw the service, Mervin Alexander, post master general (Chennai City Region), said nearly nine lakh money orders are handled in the region every month.
The department earns about Rs.4 crore as commission through the delivery of money orders.
But, mobile money transfer service wherein the customer must produce a text message with secret code to receive money is yet to catch up.
Source : http://www.thehindu.com/
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