India Post plans to make the Post Office Savings Bank interconnected with other bank accounts by April, a senior department official stated and will concentrate on increasing the digitalization of all services in 2021. During the lockdown, the postal department was at the forefront of providing necessary packages when rail, road and air traffic became halted and continues to expand efficiency as trains are not yet fully functional, Post Secretary Pradipta Kumar Bisoi told PTI.
In the coming year, we will intensify our emphasis on digitalizing services and providing doorstep services. We have now digitalized our banking and financial institutions. By April, we plan to make Post Office Savings Bank fully interoperable with other banks’ accounts, too,’ Bisoi stated. With 23,483 post offices now on this network, the Post Office Core Banking Solution (CBS) scheme is the biggest in the country.
Via 1,56 lakh post offices across the country, India Post supports more than 50 crore Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) customers. Under POSB policies, it has an unpaid balance of Rs 10.81 crore. All POSB deposits can be linked to the accounts of the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) and can be managed via the DakPay mobile app. In addition to making resources available to individuals online, we concentrate on delivering services on the doorstep. Via about 85 lakh transfers, we remitted Rs 900 crore money this year and checked 3 lakh pensioners on their doorstep,” Bisoi added.
And during the lockdown, as all forms of transport were suspended, India Post immediately had to manage the burden of supplying essential items. On 56 routes covering 80 cities, the Department of Posts (DoP) initiated a national level dedicated ‘Road Transport Network’ and transported across the network approximately 15,000 bags carrying 75 tonnes of parcels every day.
We now have a managing capacity for parcels of 9 crore articles each year. Speed Post’s average transit time declined from 105 hours in July 2019 to 81 hours in February 2020, reported Bisoi. The postal service shipped over 10 lakh medical articles around the nation during the lockdown, namely medical products packages, ventilators, PPE packs, and medicines.
Via postal platforms, which often include the use of package trains, over 36,000 tonnes of material have been shipped. India Post also delivered Gangajal to 2.37 lakh homes in April-November 2020, not even just medicines. Bisoi further reported that India Post’s market was down during the first six months of the current fiscal year, but now it is returning to normal.
