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The President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, called for leveraging the strengths of India Post and the need for developing a system which will serve the national development cause while optimising technologically the power of the post offices by becoming a partner in rural development. Dr. Kalam stated that the post office system could become a partner in the rural development since the post offices are linked to the people. The post office in collaboration with the institutions like NABARD can become a main source for disbursing rural credit at economic interest rates, which appears to be the crying need of the hour for our rural folk. Dr. Abdul Kalam said this while he was speaking on the Sesquicentennial Celebrations of the Department of Posts, held here today. The President further said that the post offices can be integrated with the new model of rural development PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas). “The Post Offices located in PURA complex can be identified as a hub for the provision of electronic connectivity and knowledge connectivity to the village community leading to economic connectivity of the village clusters”, Dr. Kalam said. With a view to establish knowledge connectivity to rural India the President stated “The rural economy can be enhanced if we can provide knowledge inputs at the right time to the farmers, artisans, craftsmen, small scale industries, self-help groups and entrepreneurs through these connected post offices”. The President further said that another major role for post offices is to prepare the citizens for meeting the global challenges, coming out of globalisation of economies, and help in the process of knowledge servicing. Post offices can also contribute effectively in the operation of village knowledge centres. The President recommended six missions for India Post in the new millennium: transforming the postman to play a dual role of being the friend of the family and also information officer for empowering the villages; preparing the system of India Post to provide an empowered network for promoting rural development; creating a networked infrastructure of all post offices in the country through computers and telecommunications; establishing village knowledge centres; training human resources to undertake envisaged activities and empowering the post office personnel in a village to be re-designated as ‘rural knowledge officer’ with mobile telephone, PDA i.e. personal digital assistant and other requisite facilities.
Speaking on the occasion the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh said that in spite of the increase in the use of e-mail and telephone, post remained the dominant mode of communication for the vast majority of the people of the country as also for the businesses. While the post survived the challenge posed a century ago by the invention and growth in usage of telephone, the new challenge now posed by electronic communication of text is a far greater one, he said. Meeting the twin challenges of technology and competition, Dr. Singh stated that these would require the department to look minutely at the users of its postal service to ensure that they do get substantial value from its products and to prevent them from migrating to other communication modes. A focus on value addition has to be matched by an emphasis on cost control. He said that there is a need to introduce modern technology and work methods to increase the productivity of the entire postal system. The Prime Minister stressed the need for modernisation of the infrastructure available at the post offices to compete with modern commercial banks. Computerisation, networking, automation, process re-engineering are the essential ingredients of the transformation which required the post office to become a provider of multiple services. The Prime Minister assured that he would extend all budgetary support to achieve this target within the current Plan period. He asked the India Post to examine as to whether it could also provide mail sorting services, particularly in view of the success the country has had as a destination for IT related business process outsourcing. It should also set in motion the process of examining developments elsewhere as part of its growth strategy.
Dr. Kalam released a set of four commemorative stamps to commemorate the 150 years of service of India Post to the nation. Dr. Kalam also gave away the Meghdoot Awards for the year 2004 to the postal employees who had rendered distinguished service. Dr. Manmohan Singh released a set of two commemorative coins each in the denomination of rupee one and rupees hundred to mark the 150 years celebration.
Narrating the achievements of the Department of Posts right from the day it was started in the year 1854, the Minister of Communications & Information Technology, Shri Dayanidhi Maran, said that his dream – rather the objective – is to computerise all the 26,200 departmental post offices in the country by the end of the celebration period itself. For this, an additional capital of Rs. 500 crore would be provided so as to get connected through computer network, he said. The Minister announced that a new service known as ‘Logistics Post’ will be introduced throughout the country during the sesquicentennial year. Shri Maran further expressed his ambition to transform the Extra-Departmental Post Offices, most commonly serve the rural areas, into information knowledge centres so that they can provide besides postal services, telecom and Internet services. All these activities, he hoped, would generate revenue through growth and the Department would achieve self-sufficiency in the yeas to come.
In his opening address the Shri Vijay Bhushan, Secretary, Department of Posts said that today the country has more than 155,000 post offices as compared to 701 when it was started in the year 1854. Proportionately the staff strength has also touched more than 590,000 as of today while it was a little over 24000 at the inception. Dr. Shakeel Ahmed, Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology delivered the Vote of Thanks.
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