India Post and Railways are in the process of working together to tap the parcel business opportunity in the country, specially in rural areas, Union Minister Manoj Sinha said.
“Recently, there was a joint meeting meeting of Railways and Posts. We have said that you (Railways) have transport and Posts has infrastructure.
Both the departments should jointly make efforts to attract parcel business in rural areas in a big way,” Communications Minister Manoj Sinha told in a telephonic interview to RailNews.
He said that Railways has 3-4 per cent share of the parcel business in rural areas, while that of India Post is estimated to be in decimals.
However, the minister said that India Post has wrested a major share of parcel business from e-commerce companies, adding that there are ample opportunities in the country.
The Department of Posts (DoP) has established 57 Integrated Parcel Booking Centres and upgraded infrastructure of 27 Parcel Booking Centres during 2013-14 to 2015-16 with total expenditure of Rs 22.58 crore.
The DoP is also selling Gangajal in the price range of Rs 101-151 per bottle.
“People don’t want to bathe in Ganga during rainy season for known reasons. Gangotri water is pure. There are many people who give importance to Gangajal due to their religious faith. The postal department is delivering Gangajal from Gangotri and Rishikesh. There is massive demand for it across the country,” Sinha said.
Talking about India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), Sinha said the first meeting of the postal bank board was held on September 1 and search for CEO has started.
“CEO will be appointed soon. A retired Managing Director of a nationalised bank has been given charge for the time being to look after the work of the payments bank,” Sinha said.
He said that government is working as per set timelines and will open the first IPPB branch by March and 650 branches by September 2017.
The Minister stressed that except in the case of policy decisions, all complaints related to postal services will be addressed within 24 Hours. Shri Sinha recalled that last month he had launched “Twitter Sewa” for addressing the complaints and concerns of common man and other stake-holders in the telecom and postal sectors, where on an average 100 complaints are received daily related to postal services. He said, the Department of Posts is one of the 8th largest Department/Ministry in terms of numbers of complaints received. A toll free helpline number ‘1924’ would be available for customers from all over India from landline/mobile phone of service providers namely AirTel, Idea, Vodaphone, Telenor, Aircel, MTS, Reliance etc.
The complaints received from the complainant on toll free number ‘1924’ would be registered in Computerized Customer Centre (CCC) Portal by the operators at the Dak Bhawan and the 11 digits ticket number would be provided to the complainants. If the complaint already registered, the complainant would be informed the status as viewed in CCC Portal. As soon as the complaint is generated on CCC Portal, the concerned post office will take immediate necessary action to resolve it and would upload the status.
All the Postal Circles will have a Control Room for monitoring and redressal of complaints. The Nodal Officer in each Circle will open the CCC Portal every day and check all the complaints beginning with “100030 – …… the Toll Free Complaints” and will examine for quick disposal. The Circle Heads would direct to all the Post Offices concerned to ensure that they log in CCC Portal at the beginning of day and at the end of the day compulsorily.
The case disposal time is one working day subject to policy matters. The complainant would be informed, if it involves policy matter. A reasonable reply should be uploaded in the CCC Portal. The Circle will update the status of each such cases every 24 hrs. through email on [email protected]. The name of Officers with email address and mobile number in each Circle who will be Nodal Officer, should be sent on email [email protected] .
CPMG should review the ‘1924’ pending cases every day and in case of pendency going beyond 24 hours would give full details and convey his/her observation to PG Cell of Directorate which will provide weekly report to the Office of Secretary (Posts). The Circles would provide utmost priority and quick disposal of the complaints received through Toll Free Centre. All the Circles would propagate and give wide publicity of “Toll Free Number 1924” within their jurisdiction through appropriate medium within budgetary limit.
