The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has
taken a review of the Department of Posts (DoP) with special focus on the
implementation of proposals submitted by a task force on leveraging the DoP's
post office network.
The PMO held a meeting with senior
officials last week and discussed the action taken by DoP so far regarding
setting up of the payments bank, e-commerce initiatives and modernisation of
its information technology (IT) infrastructure.
According to sources, the PMO is
monitoring the progress made by DoP to improve its functioning and utilising
the vast network of post offices across the country for financial inclusion.
Regarding the payments bank, the DoP
in its action-taken report to PMO said the public investment board (PIB) in its
meeting, held on January 19, discussed the Rs 800-crore proposal and is
awaiting PIB's response.
"The recommendations of PIB
shall thereafter be placed before the Cabinet for final approval. Meanwhile,
the department is in the process of engaging a consultant for assisting it in
setting up the India Post Payments Bank. Three bids were received till January
8, 2016, and are currently being evaluated," DoP said in the report.
For strengthening the e-commerce
infrastructure, DoP has set up 57 new state-of-the-art parcel centres across
the country through which more than 400 e-commerce companies are being
serviced.
DoP said global positioning systems
(GPSs) is being fitted in the outsourced and departmental vehicles to enable
real-time tracking of parcel consignments. GPS devices have been installed in
926 departmental mail vans.
The department said it is already
implementing schemes for upgrading the infrastructure for handling logistics
and parcels across the country and the current Five Year Plan has an approved
outlay of Rs 568.20 crore for Mail Operations to cover such requirements.
DoP said its tariff and costing
division has reviewed the tariff of various services, in the light of
directions received from the PMO and tariff for foreign mail services has been
revised with effect from December 1, 2015.
The department said it had written to
all the government departments, state governments and public sector
undertakings (PSUs) offering them its services for social mobilisation of their
schemes.
"This has resulted in tie-ups
with Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) for use of postal
services for pan-India distribution of its calendars up to panchayat level.
Agreement has been signed with Bharat Electronics for delivery of their
sensitive equipment across 80 locations within the country through Speed Post,'
it said.
The department has also undertaken
sale of sovereign gold bonds as part of PM's Swaran Bharat Yojana on behalf of
the finance ministry while a scheme for sale of India Gold Coins through post
offices, in collaboration with MMTC, is also in final stages.