MP supports postal employees’ demand

Dear Comrades,

MANDYA: MP Chaluvarayaswamy on Sunday promised to fulfil demands of the postal employees by bringing to the notice of the minister concerned.

Speaking after inaugurating the second anniversary celebrations of the All India Postal Employees Association here on Sunday, he said he has not been able to understand their problems due to time constraint.

He suggested the association to send a detailed report that includes discussion on disparity in wages, decisions taken and others. In reply, the MP said he would take up the issue with the concerned Minister and officers at the central level.

Dak sevak’s problems

They also discussed the various problems faced by the Dak sevaks and the disparity in wages on the occasion.

Rural Dak Sevak Regional president Prahallad Rao, V R Swamy, Post Master Rangaswamy, Group C Employees Association President M C Bhaskar and K V Anand participated.

Mandya, November 28, DH News Service.

Gadgets to be used for NREGS work - India Post

Dear Comrades,

India Post will provide gadgets such as biometric fingerprint scanners , magnetic strip readers and thermal printers to its 1,30,000 rural offices to smoothen the process of verification and payment under the national rural employment guarantee scheme .

It has charted out an ambitious rural information technology (IT) plan that will make the wage disbursement under the scheme paperless, said an official with the department who asked not to be named. Although NREGA is administered by the ministry of rural development, payments under the UPA government’s flagship job safety programme are routed through the postal network and bank branches. The postal department services more than half of the wage earners under the scheme in most states of the country.

The government has allocated Rs 40,100 crore for NREGA in 2010-11 . It is estimated that the rural development ministry will be able to utilise only about Rs 35,000 crore in the current year. A total of 179,43,189 families have been provided employment under the scheme till June 30 this year.

The devices offered to the post offices will have an in-built global positioning system (GPS) to determine the frequency of the postal staff’s visits to the villages, which will ensure accountability on the part of the branch post masters. This will also help the department map its delivery territory.

The move will help the hugely popular scheme to check leakage of funds owing to fake attendance under the scheme.  In some states of North East, it was found that funds were transferred under the scheme to even doctors and engineers. In Uttar Pradesh alone the leakage is estimated at . 850 crore annually. The department has invited participation of private players in this regard. The IT revamp, which will happen in phases, is expected to be completed in two years, said an official with the ministry of communications and information technology.

To ensure that the process is made hassle-free , the devices will have portable web cameras with enabling features such as bluetooth and wifi access for seamless transfer of data that may be required under the verification process for accounts.  Transactions under the scheme will happen only when the wage earner’s biometric information is matched with data stored in the department’s electronic database.

“Our devices will be compliant with standards issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India,” said YP Rai, deputy director general (rural business) at India Post.  As network availability in most rural areas is inconsistent, the devices will have facility to function both online and offline. To address the problem of inadequate power supply, the devises will have an in-built battery with solar chargers.

India Post has released a Special Cover to commemorate 20 years of Young World.

Dear Comrades,

To celebrate the 20th birthday of Young World a special postal cover was released by M.S. Ramanujan, Postmaster General, Chennai City Region, which was received by Mr. N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu.

Now, Young World has been etched in the portals of history and is recorded in the postal archives for posterity. The Special Cover also has Philatelic value, specially if it is cancelled.

The special cover is the way the Departments of Posts honours an event. On the day of the issue it is cancelled with a special cancellation and the event and date are given on the cover in English and Hindi, explained Philatelist, Mr. Sheshadri.

These special covers are specially designed and it has to be approved by the Chief Post Master General, in this case, of Tamil Nadu Circle, Chennai 600002.

24th All India Postal Hockey Tournament begins today

Dear Comrades,

Twenty-fourth All India Postal Hockey Tournament is all set to begin at the Astro Turf Stadium in Morahbadi on Monday. The tournament is scheduled from November 29 to December 3. Six teams of the State's Postal Offices include Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

Addressing a Press conference at the Doranda Post Office on Sunday, KK Sinha, and Postmaster General informed about the tournament. He said: "Hockey has been one of the prime games of the State and we are trying to give exposure to our players. A hockey tournament organised in 2004 had seen good performances. The post office has a special quota for the international and nationally acclaimed players during the recruitments. Such players of the several post offices will play during the tournament." The inaugural of the tournament will be done by KV Sundar Rajan, Chief Postmaster General, Jharkhand. Silvanus Dungdung, Former Olympian and Manohar Topno, former hockey player will be the special guests during the inaugural day boosting the confidence of the players.

The National Postal Board, the authority for organising the games has appointed Harishank from Uttar Prasdeh, Nazir Mulla from Maharashtra and Devendra Pal Singh from Punjab as the supervisor. Cultural programmes will also be organised on December 2 to display the wonderful array of cultural tradition across the State by acclaimed local artistes. Kaushalendra Kumar Sinha, Postmaster General (Business development, technology and business marketing) will felicitate the teams on the concluding ceremony.

PNS, Ranchi
December 02, 2010 11:49:19 PM

Certificate Verification Process completed

Dear Comrades,

The Certificate verification process of 37 new PAs have been completed on 30.11.2010. It is learnt that very soon their training programme will also held in Orissa Circle itself.

Inauguration of P R Peta SO new rented building with SPM's residence

Dear Comrades,

Due to sincere efforts of Com. K N Rao with support of our comrades, the P R Peta S.O. has been able to shift to a new building to 3rd line of P R Peta with SPM residence. The newly shifted office was inaugurated on 30.11.2010 by our SSPOs, Shri B G Satpathy in presence of Com. P C Maharana, Com. S Arun Kumar, Com. B Ghosh, Com. P Suresh Kumar, Com. R K Behera, Com. H S Behera, Com. K Choudhury Com. Panda and others. Here are few pics of the occasion.

 

Joint DWC Meeting of AIPEU, Koraput Divisional Branch

Dear Comrades,

As scheduled the Joint Divisional Working Committee Meeting of AIPEU Group-C, AIPEU Postmen & Group-D and AIPEDEU, Koraput Divisional Branch was held on 28.11.2010 at Koraput HO successfully. A very good number of comrades participated in the said meeting and made it a very fruitful one. The meeting was presided by President, Group-C, Com. R N Nahak who managed it very well.

Com. R N Nahak, Com. Purna Chandra Maharana, Com. B P Mishra, Com. R K Rayapalli, Com. P Suresh Kumar was on dias to represent Group-C.

Com. Lambadar Bisoyi, Com. Nilambar Naik, Com. Dasmant Gond and Com. Prabhat Kumar Mohapatra have represented Postmen and Group-D.

Com. Jagdish Kar, Com. Rajendra Prasad Sahu and Com. Chakrapani Chikati were on the dias to represent AIPEDEU.

Various issues presented on agenda were discussed minutely in the said meeting followed by good number of suggestions from the crowd.

Authorization for PLI and RPLI Business Procurement

Dear Comrades,

Every Departmental Employeesand GDSs are now eligible for procuring PLI and RPLI business. So, if any one is interested to procure PLI or RPLI on his/her behalf beyond working hours than it is requested to submit his/her willingness to Divisional Office mentioning his/her name, gender, designation, office, account office, mobile number, date of birth with his/her signature and may be forwarded through his office/account office for allotment of code and receipt book. The material on PLI and RPLI can be accessed in website of our department i.e. http://indiapost.gov.in.

Department of Post to act as a Corporate Agent of Insurers

Dear Comrades,

According to the article published in The HINDU dated 28th Nov, 2010;

Very soon, your neighbourhood postman can be your insurance agent. The Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) has granted permission to postal circles to distribute insurance products.

IRDA has allowed each circle of the Department of Post (DOP) to act as a corporate agent of insurers. This effectively means that post offices will now serve as an office for insurance agencies. The DOP has divided the whole country into 22 postal circles for providing postal services.

As per IRDA, each Circle of India post should be treated as a separate unit in order to grant independent corporate agent licence with various insurers. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) allowed each circle to tie up with two non-life insurance companies, two life insurance companies, one agricultural insurance company and one stand alone health insurance company for this purpose.

So each circle can act as an agent of five various insurance companies for various insurance activities. In case of metropolitan areas, the head of a circle may approach IRDA for prior approval of further division within the circle into separate units because of large population. The smaller units can then obtain licence to act as corporate agents. Corporate agents act as insurance agent for insurers and procure businesses on behalf of the insurance companies through its executives.

INDIA POST SENDS OUT TECH MAILS

Dear Comrades,

The article on total computerization in Department of Posts published in Business Standard dated 28.11.2010 is reproduced hereunder for information of our comrades.

IT majors in race for Rs 1,000-cr postal modernisation contract.

With increasing competition across sectors for its different kinds of services, the over 150-year-old Indian postal system is set for a major technological advancement to improve its customer service, deliver new services and improve operational efficiencies. The Department of Posts (DoP) is understood to have given a go-ahead to its Information Technology (IT) modernisation project under the India Post 2012 plan, which has thrown opportunities of over Rs 1,000 crore for Indian and global IT vendors.

According to highly-placed industry sources, DoP has initiated the process to identify IT implementation partners for developing core applications covering key areas such as mail operations, financial services, postal insurance, finance and HR. The department has already invited expressions of interest for the project. It would shortlist the interested companies based on the project requirements. The contract is expected to be finalised early next year.

Sources said most of the leading Indian and global IT services companies, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, IBM, HP and Capgemini have shown interest to participate in the contract, which will be for a duration of two-three years. “DoP is faced with twin challenges of increasing competition and continuing advances in communication technology, especially in mobile telephony and the internet. In order to provide the best-in-class customer service, deliver new services and improve operational efficiencies, DoP has undertaken an end-to-end IT modernisation project to equip itself with requisite modern tools and technologies,” an official note said.

DoP currently has the largest postal network in the world with 155,015 post offices spread across the country. Out of that, only 12,604 head post offices and sub post offices have been computerised so far. By the end of 2012, the department wants to computerise all post offices that would help it offer its various services seamlessly. DoP currently uses about 56 standalone IT applications that run in silos and do not speak to each other. The IT implementation partner will develop integration architecture model using service oriented architecture so that all the post offices will be able to provide affordable services in an efficient manner.

Bibhu Ranjan Mishra / Bangalore November 28, 2010, 0:54 IST