Mrs. P Gopinath, Secretary, Department of
Posts has been selected as Bureaucrat of the month by Bureaucracy Today
magazine.
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P
Gopinath
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India Post embraces IT to keep pace with changing times:
Secy P Gopinath
At a time when technology is rapidly
revolutionalising channels of communication, the Indian Postal Department has
also embraced IT and diversified into areas like e-commerce and financial
services to be on a par with the new age. Department of Post Secretary P
Gopinath, a 1977-batch IPoS officer, shares with Bureaucracy Today how the
public sector postal monolith has transformed itself to keep pace with the
changing times.
By Soma Chakraborty
Aiming at making itself
technology-enabled, self-reliant market leader, India Post under the leadership
of Secretary P Gopinath has taken various revolutionary measures which have
transformed the Government-run Postal Department into a highly reliable service
for both common people and corporates alike. One of such steps is ‘India Post
2012’, an ambitious IT transformation project which will enable the Government
to create a national asset of 1,55,000 IT-enabled post offices.
“The focus of the Department in the
last one year has been on rolling out the IT modernization project along with
its emphasis on service delivery improvement and the launch of new e-enabled
products and services. The India Post 2012 project, scheduled to be completed
by mid-2015, is the first of its kind undertaken by any postal operator in the
world. The primary focus of the programme is to improve and automate the Post
Office Savings Bank, Postal Life Insurance counter operations of post office
and mail through business process re-engineering and the creation of efficient
operations. The project will provide the Core Banking facility, ATMs in urban
areas and micro-ATMs in rural areas,” Gopinath tells Bureaucracy Today.
She further says, “The project will
bridge the urban-rural divide, will make the post office the focal point of
delivery of social security schemes of the Central and State governments under
Direct Benefit Transfer and will provide biometric authentication of financial
transactions and multiple channels like the ATM, mobile banking and net banking
for the Savings Bank customer. It will also provide an electronic and secure
mode of money transfer, particularly in rural India. To add to our bouquet of
e-services, India Post has also launched the e-IPO service for the payment of
RTI fee by all Indian residents through the e-Post Office portal. The e-Post
Service is now available in one-to-many and many-to-one sender/recipient
modes.”
INITIATIVES TO TAP CORPORATE SEGMENT
Keeping in view the increasing role
of business in customer transactions in the emerging e-commerce market, the
Postal Department has introduced various facilities like Cash-on-Delivery for
speed post and business parcel products and the track and trace facility for
speed post and parcel products.
“To cater to the return logistics
requirement for the emerging e-Commerce, the facility of returns through speed
post in the form of ‘Business Reply Speed Post’ service is being planned. The
department has also started a pre-mailing activity in the form of Business Post
so as to cater to the requirements of corporate customers and to assist bulk
mailers. The Print to Post Service has been started with a view to integrating
the mailing process of bulk mailers right from printing a letter to delivery,”
Gopinath tells Bureaucracy Today.
Aiming at faster communication of
messages, the department has introduced an ePost Service. “It is a hybrid mail
service where the message travels electronically and at the destination point
the message is printed and delivered in paper format. Apart from sending ePost
messages through post offices, individual customers can register themselves
online to use the facility of pre-paid account wherein they can send ePost
messages using their own computers and the Internet. The corporate version of
the facility enables ministries/ departments/ PSUs and other organizations to
send ePost messages from their premises in bulk. The instant transmission of
the messages gives a futuristic approach and will help in tapping the emerging
business in this field,” the 1977-batch IPoS officer says.
COMPETITION FROM PRIVATE COURIER
SERVICES
On the competition from private
courier services, Gopinath tells Bureaucracy Today, “The market today is large
enough to accommodate more than one operator. The private couriers operate in a
niche market with its own market space and clientele. None of the private
couriers has a pan-India presence to the extent that India Post has. We are the
sole player in the market that can offer pan-India service. This is our USP and
the reason why our customers choose India Post for effecting delivery across
the country.”
She further says, “Despite over
three decades of operations, the private courier sector in India is far from
being ready to handle the kind of volumes that India Post does and reach the
farthest corners of the country. Many of the private couriers in India do not
follow labour laws and transparent service deficiency compensation policy. With
the launch of the India Post IT Project we are ready to offer customers
improvement in service delivery.”
VISION FOR INDIAN POSTAL DEPTT
On her vision for the Indian Postal
Department, Gopinath says, “Our vision is to make India Post products and
services the customer's first choice and all our efforts are geared towards
this goal.”
“Our efforts towards providing
world-class service to customers have already started bearing fruits. The Mail
Network Optimization Project of India Post has bagged the National E-Governance
Award 2012-13 under the category ‘Outstanding performance in citizen-centric
service delivery’,” the IPoS officer says proudly.
National awards in e-Governance are
presented every year by the Department of Reforms and Public Grievances in
collaboration with the Department of Information Technology to recognize and
promote excellence in implementing e-Governance initiatives by various
Government sectors.
Appreciating P Gopinath’s immense
contribution in making the Indian Postal Department high-tech and
customer-friendly and putting it on a par with its global counterparts, the
Bureaucracy Today editorial team designates the dynamic IPoS officer as
Bureaucrat of the Month for the May 2014 issue of the magazine.
Source : http://www.bureaucracytoday.com/mustread_bureaucrat.aspx?id=24
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