PROJECT 2012

INDIAPOST -2012

The key objectives of the India Post 2012 project are:

• Modernization and computerization of all Post offices in the country including Branch Post offices in rural areas, mail offices and administrative and other offices;
• Development of scalable, integrated and modular software covering all operations of the Department of Posts such as Mail Operations, Postal Banking, Insurance, Finance and HR;
• Establishment of required IT Infrastructure including Data centre, Wide Area Network (WAN) based networking of the departmental post offices; and
• Deployment of Rural Information Communication Technology (Rural ICT) infrastructure in all ~1,30,000 Rural Post Offices.

The Department of Posts has a network of approximately 1.55 Lakhs post offices, of which 1.3 Lakh are rural post offices. The IT Modernisation project will rebuild the rural postal infrastructure to create institutional last mile connectivity for service delivery of Post, IT based services including banking & insurance and Govt. schemes like MGNREGS, Social Security etc. This infrastructure will form the platform for the electronic delivery of postal, financial, insurance and Government services to the 80 Crore plus rural population through Post Offices.

The project will also unlock revenue streams previously stymied due to lack of automation and radically improve delivery of mail to urban customers. This will help increase revenues in the banking and mail businesses thereby leading to the economic sustainability of the Department of Posts.

Project will attain the following objectives

• Providing e-services to the citizens in efficient manner at affordable cost with greater Accountability & Productivity
• Maximizing revenue from various services and products
• Enhancing customer satisfaction through provision of - need-based products and services, the improvement of service quality, speed of delivery and reliability
• Ability to promote, provide its services in a user friendly, competitive manner in attractive environment
• Consolidate current IT Infrastructure, migrate to an efficient, reliable, user friendly IT System
• Planning & Setting up pan India network which supports planned IT Systems, flexible to support Applications
• Existing Application study, consolidation & migration if necessary
• Optimal Resource utilization and leveraging strengths of extensive retail network
• Introduction of Commercial Accounting System ( Accrual Based Accounting)
• Acquiring Brand equity of a leading edge service provider
• Employee delight

Vision of India Post 2012

India Post 2012 aims at transforming the DoP into a “Technology Enabled, Self-Reliant Market Leader”. This translates into 5 initiatives covering increased market share and revenues, new products and services, improved service delivery, motivated workforce and rural development.

Business Priorities of Department of Posts

I. Mail Operations: Every year the DoP delivers more than 600 crore articles through its elaborate network of Post Offices. On the delivery side, the DoP has a large workforce of urban Postmen and GDS delivery agents to facilitate the delivery of mail to the final recipients. Mail Business is optimising its products, services and back end processes to ensure growth in business. Some of the objectives are:

• To increase visibility into mail operations (at the article level and overall volume)
• To enable operational planning for all the DoP facilities through planning tools
• To improve employee productivity through better manpower planning

II. Logistics Post: Logistics Post provides transportation, distribution, warehousing and logistics related value added services to the customers. Logistics Post Air, under which air lift is given to consignments, operates in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and North East. Some of the objectives are:  

• To provide end-to-end supply chain services through a technology-driven logistics network that provides transportation, warehousing, distribution and e-Logistics
• To create warehousing capacity by utilising the DoP’s vacant sites
• To offer e-logistics services to tap into the rapidly growing e-commerce market in India

III. E-Commerce: The DoP plans to launch its e-commerce website to harness the power and reach of the world wide web.
Some of the objectives are:

• To share information related to the DoP, its products and services in a consistent manner
• To provide capability to do web based transactions for mails, banking and insurance services
• Online sale of third party products/services
• To provide advertising avenues for advertisers

IV. Postal Banking Operations: The DoP is one of the largest providers of financial services in the country with an account base of around 22 crores and a deposit base of over 5,53,234 crores. The DoP’s vision is to be one of the leaders in providing banking and money remittance services to the citizens of the country with a focus on the rural population. Some of the objectives are:  

• To increase the number of customers from existing 20 crores to 35 crores by 2012
• To provide multiple delivery channels like internet, mobile banking, ATMs, telephone, cards thereby bringing access to financial services to the doorsteps of the customers
• To enable faster money remittances and funds transfers and increase volumes to capture a 50% market share by 2014
• To become the one stop solution for financial inclusion & microfinance initiatives of government, public/private sector banks

V. Postal Life Insurance: The DoP provides two types of life insurance: Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI). PLI is offered to employees of all Central and State government departments, Nationalised Banks, Public Sector Undertakings, Financial Institutions, local bodies like Municipalities and Zila Parishads, educational institutions aided by the Government etc. RPLI is the insurance service being offered to the rural populace. Some of the objectives are:

• To become the first choice insurer in rural India
• To develop a fully integrated life insurance platform to enable efficient and cost effective service to existing and new customers
• To improve the quality of service being offered to the customers
• To achieve “financial inclusion” of the un-insured rural population, while minimizing the cost of operations

VI. Rural Business: One of the key components of the DoP’s vision is to be a “socially committed organisation connecting individuals and businesses”. Of the total 1.55 lakh Post Offices, around 10% are situated in urban areas and 90% are in rural areas. On an average, each Post Office in India serves an area of 21.2 sq. km and a population of 7,174. Some of the objectives are:  

• To achieve “financial inclusion” of un-banked rural population
• To enable Branch Offices to make disbursements for social security schemes such as MGNREGS
• To improve the quality of services being offered to rural customers
• To increase revenues by providing retail post services, third party services etc.

VII. Finance & Accounts: The Postal Accounts & Finance (PAF) function forms the backbone of the DoP’s products and services. As the DoP plans for the future, it would be important to tread the path of sustained cost management and devising effective tools for intelligent business decisions. Some of the objectives are:

• To move from cash based accounting to accrual based accounting in specific areas of operations within the DoP
• To streamline the processes by eliminating duplication of data entry at different levels
• To bring efficiencies in Inventory management and Procurement with real time validations against approved budgets

VIII. Human Resources: Human Resources function comprises of the Personnel (and Establishment) and Human Resource Development (HRD) groups which serve 2.18 Lakh departmental employees and 2.74 Lakh GDS employees. In order to support the growth aspirations of the DoP, HR function is looking at redesigning its processes. Some of the objectives are:  

• To provide the administrative offices with centralised and accurate employee information
• Employee development through improvement in training administration and management
• To support optimal utilisation of manpower through accurate and timely analysis of workload