The Hindu : New Delhi News : Postal Department incurring losses

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
ePaper

New Delhi

New Delhi

Postal Department incurring losses

Sandeep Joshi

In the past five years, DoP's mail traffic has registered a decline of nearly 50 per cent

NEW DELHI: In this age of Internet and competitive courier services, it is the good old Department of Posts (DoP) that has taken a severe beating. Year after year, the performance of DoP is on the decline, mainly due to its operational inefficiencies and failed modernisation plans.

In the past five years, DoP's mail traffic has registered a decline of nearly 50 per cent due to increased competition from private couriers and other new modes of communication, especially the value-added services in the telecom sector. DoP has failed to improve its operational efficiency, reduce staff costs and modernise its operations to render better services to the customer, states the DoP's performance audit report tabled in Parliament recently.

"DoP continued to incur losses during the last five years and 16 out of 20 postal services continued to sustain losses over the years. The net loss for the year ending March 31, 2006, was Rs.1,207.71 crore," states the report prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

Despite making ambitious plans and sanctioning money for it, DoP has failed to implement its modernisation plans. "The projects for computerisation of head records offices, computerised registration centres and transit mail offices have fallen behind schedule and the computers installed were not being used for faster processing mail and other articles in handling offices. Hardware worth Rs.6.72 crore remained idle due to inadequate infrastructure," says the CAG report.

Moreover, DoP's efforts to modernise and mechanise mail-sorting operations at Chennai and Mumbai to improve operational efficiency through introduction of automatic mail processing machines also did not succeed despite an investment of Rs.60.25 crore. Failure to standardise mail and ensure adequate public awareness about the advantages of using standard postal stationery were the two main reasons behind the fiasco.

The Department also failed to carry out the business professionally. For instance, business post facility was extended to customers without taking advance, which resulted in accumulation of outstanding dues of Rs.2.02 crore in eight head post offices, while an agreement was signed with the United Arab Emirates without taking into account weight and distance element which resulted in loss of Rs.9.15 crore, the report states.

One of the main reasons behind DoP's dismal performance is the uncontrolled growth of courier companies that are operating in violation of norms.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi