Dear Comrades,
From a modest beginning, India Post is now the leading postal services provider in the world. The rise of ‘postal power’ is visible with modern looks some post offices have been donning in city, writes Eswar Singh K R .
Narayana Rao, an octogenarian living in Saraswathipuram was a regular at the post office in his locality for more than five decades now. On Monday last week, the swanky new look of the post office surprised him when he visited the place after a break of six months.
The post office has got a corporate touch with new furnishings and modern infrastructure. The flashy corporate look of the office and its pleasing clean ambience made Rao beam with happiness for he had been attached to it ever since he opened a small savings account in 1960s.
It is the second post office in the city to get the new-look after Head post office (HPO) was renovated.
Surprises
For people like Rao, there are more surprises in the offing from the India Post. The modernisation process is a big leap in the direction of modest post offices and enterprising India Post embracing Information Communication Technology (ICT) in a big way in the months and years to come - don’t be surprised if a postal saving account holder is seen drawing money from India post ATMs.
If the Project Arrow of the India Post has entailed for the upgradation of select post office infrastructure like HPO on Irwin road, Saraswathipuram PO and K R Nagar rural post office, the India Post 2012 IT modernisation project has laid down the roadmap to embrace the ICT.
N Prakash, Senior Superintendent of Post Offices told City Herald that work on computerisation of all available data on customers in HPO and Saraswathipuram PO was completed.
Both these offices have been upgraded on similar lines to maintain uniformity in post office look all over the country. Other post offices will also be brought under the Arrow in phased manner. Recently, Mysore district has many first to its credit.
As Mysore is among the first few districts to be covered under the Unique Identification (UID) project, the HPO has disbursed more than 3.5 lakh UID cards so far in the district.
“The work is delivered without hindering the existing mail delivery service and with the existing personnel in the post offices in city and district. We expect to deliver thrice the number of delivered cards in the future days till the project completes,” says Prakash.
While, the HPO Mysore has the credit of selling the highest number of gold coins in the State.
“Though being a Sunday, we opened the counter on Akshaya Tritiya day. The HPO sold 380 gms of gold coins of various denominations like 5 gms, 8 gms and 10 gms. We ran out of stock and had to transfer some coins from neighbouring HOs,” Assistant Superintendent Anil Joshi adds.
According to Joshi, the India Post has embarked on a mission to provide a range of service under one roof. Besides the traditional services, post offices now offer EMS speed post, business post - for bulk mailers, bill mail service, direct post, Express parcel post, logistics post, e-post, e-payment, retail post, media post (ads on post cards, letters etc), mutual funds and insurance policies, pass port services, public provident funds scheme and other financial services, says Anil Joshi.
The legacy
For India Post, the beginning was modest with a simple objective - to keep you in touch with your loved ones.
As the face of India changes, the India Post have evolved into a dynamic, multi-dimensional organisation with an international presence.
India Post is the largest banking organisation backed by 6 lakh dedicated workforce and is spread over 1.5 lakh post offices in India.Under India Post 2012, India Post aims to establish a data/disaster recovery centre, house all the transactions and data with a secure and centrally governed IT system. It also aims at nation-wide networking of all the post offices and begin core banking services on lines of PSU banks
Eswar Singh K R, Deccan Herald, 5.3.2011
