Union government planning to modernise post offices

The Union government is planning to modernise the country’s postal network by taking leverage of the information technology.

Initially, about 25,000 post offices in the country will be brought under the IT network, according to T.S.R. Subramanian, chairman of a internal task force on leveraging post office network.

Chairing a meeting of a task force, to receive suggestions from the public here on Sunday, Mr. Subramanian, a retired Cabinet Secretary, said the Union government has taken this decision to provide several of its programmes across the country. There are more than 1.5 lakh post offices in the country and 25,000 among them would be networked by next April-May, he said.

Mr. Subramanian also said the government has plans to introduce postal banking services and e-commerce facility through the postal department.

The government is keen on eliminating the urban-rural divide by providing all information on government services through post offices at every gram panchayat through internet broadband, he said.

Several suggestions, including equipping the postman with electronic machine, educating children about savings, offering travel tickets at post offices and providing information about all government services at post offices, were made by participating public in the meeting. Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Thulasi Maddineni suggested to make post offices permanent centres to offer Aadhaar numbers.

Task Force members K.A. Devaraj, Vasumitra, H.D. Ravindra, R.L. Narayan and Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim were present.