Whither postal services in India?
S. RAMESH
The vast reach of the postal service is unmatched. It will be unwise to allow such a service to die a slow death
OF LATE serious doubts about the future of postal services in India are being expressed by many. The Indian Postal Service, which completed 150 years of service recently, has lost its sheen and its glorious days are a thing of the past.
In accordance with the new liberalised economic policy, the government has stipulated that:
1. The postal services should run on their own and no subsidy will be forthcoming in a few years to come.
2. The basic postal services are facing stiff competition from private couriers and the volume of work is dropping as a result of big strides in communication technology; therefore downsizing the workforce and effecting severe cuts in the working cost should be enforced strictly.
3. The Postal Department should evolve its own means to augment its resources by introducing new services and taking up agency functions.
Providing state subsidy to the postal services is not unique to our country as most of the state run postal services in the world are subsidised.
To augment the resources and reduce the loss, the mandarins sitting in the Sanchar Bhavan and in the various PMG's offices all over the country have resorted to ad hoc policies and are coming out with their own fancy ideas which are doomed to fail or result in inconsequential benefits. Selling of university prospectus, delivery of temple prasadams, and issue of bus passes, selling of T-shirts, agarbathis, and music cassettes, etc., are some of the examples of such misadventures.
The ambitious project of Data Post which was undertaken in Bangalore and Hyderabad at considerable cost with the tax payer's money has not been able to generate any revenue to the department. To improve the resources of the department, it is wise to go in with the time tested work culture of organisation.
Non-productive exercises
The postal services in India have proven expertise in the field of mails handling, money transfer, savings, insurance, some basic counter services. It is better to concentrate on these services and try to be forerunners in these fields. It is time to stop venturing into silly and non-productive exercises, which neither bring revenue nor give job satisfaction to the workers.
The vast reach of the postal service through its countrywide network of more than 1,50,000 post offices is unmatched by any other service sector. It will be unwise to allow such a service to die a slow death. Ways should therefore be evolved to make the optimum use of the vast potential and the workforce available.
The Postal Savings Bank is a phenomenal financial giant operating more than 11 crores accounts with an outstanding balance of more than Rs. 1,55,000 crores. Thus there is a clear case for improving this service along with the postal life insurance, which is at present limited to very small sections of the people. A proposal to have a postal bank is said to be before the government, which should be positively considered.
The premium and other services recently introduced are largely intended to cater to the needs of the urban population.
Rural postal service has received a raw deal. There has been no serious attempt to know the postal needs of the vast rural population of this country. A serious survey is yet to be undertaken in this regard. The vast potential of more than 1,28,000 rural post offices are not being used to their optimum. The workforce of rural post offices has exceeded its target by many folds in most of the States in mobilising the rural postal life insurance business and thus proved that it is capable of undertaking more responsible work, if entrusted.
The government is contemplating to amend the provisions in the Postal Act to end the monopoly of the Department of Posts in handling personal mail. Of course this monopoly exists on paper only, as the entire courier service providers are violating this provision with impunity. For obvious reasons the trade unions are vehemently opposing this move. The competition from the couriers to the state run postal service is being faced by many countries and such countries have taken appropriate remedial action at the right time. One such action is to regulate the weight and rate structure of mails to be handled by the courier services.
This will go a long way to save the Postal Department from going into a state of oblivion. It is time that all concerned should act immediately to redeem and save a useful and capable public sector service organisation.
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