Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon’ble Minister
of Communications & Information Technology, chaired a review
meeting on the issues relating to setting up of Post Bank, Mail
delivery, and e-Commerce, at Dak Bhawan, New Delhi, on 01st May 2015.
The Hon’ble Minister
emphasized that with a vast network of Post Offices at its disposal,
the proposed Post Bank should become a game-changer in Indian banking
sector. The Post Bank should become a local agency for the recently
announced MUDRA Bank. Also, the Post Bank accounts should be Aadharseeded so that various Government schemes for Direct Benefit Transfer could be rolled out through the Post Bank.
In order to improve the visibility of rural Branch Post Offices, the Hon’ble Minister
directed the Department to install large Signage Boards for rural Post
Offices within a span of 6 months. The Minister also announced his
intention to pay a surprise visit to a Branch Post Office in NCR in the
coming weeks.
While
reviewing the performance of the Department in the field of e-Commerce
parcel delivery, the Minister appreciated the growth of more than 36% in
parcel revenue in the last one year. The Department has collected more
than Rs. 500 crores for COD articles of major e-Commerce players such as Amazon, Flipkart,Snapdeal, Yepme, Naaptol, etc., in 2014-15.
The Hon’ble Minister
stated that the Department should step up its efforts to ramp up its
capabilities to book, process, transmit & deliver e-Commerce
articles. By doing so, the Department can easily become a market leader
in domestic e-Commerce delivery segment. The Minister directed senior
officers in Postal Circles to have one-to-one meeting with e-Commerce
players operating in their areas to obtain their feedback about the
services & undertake immediate remedial action wherever required.
The Hon’ble Minister
took keen interest in reviewing the Online KPIs for mail delivery
performance. Whereas he appreciated the performance of Speed Post &
Registered Mail delivery, the Hon’ble Minister expressed his concern at the complaints received for delay in mail delivery. Smt. Kavery Banerjee,
Secretary, Department of Posts, highlighted that the incidence of
complaints in Speed Post was 1:10,000 and that owing to its reach, track
& trace & delivery performance, Speed Post was the market
leader in domestic express sector. The Secretary (Posts), however,
assured the Minister that the Department has initiated several steps to
further improve mails delivery through development of road transport
network, nodal mechanized delivery in larger cities, and use of IT
solution for monitoring Letter Box clearance.
