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Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia

Our Bureau

New Delhi, July 16 In a bid to turn around the postal services in the country, the Ministry of Communications and IT is undertaking a major restructuring of India Post — a new logo, training of human resources and upgrading the infrastructure with new technologies. The Department of Post has roped in McKinsey & Co as consultants for the project and Ogilvy & Mather for designing the brand.

Every year, the Government is losing revenues of over Rs 1,300 crore from postal services, primarily due to high pension costs and universal services obligation.

Announcing the new initiative called Project Arrow, Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of State for Communications and IT, said the project will be implemented in two phases — phase I, covering 50 post offices will be launched on August 15 and another 450 by December 31 this year.

“To meet the new emerging challenges and to make most of these opportunities, India Post needs to restructure itself so as to put in place a mechanism that is fast in giving response, quick in adaptation of new technology and flexible in its business approach. This pilot project is intended to lay the foundation of a systematic transformation of India Post into a responsive business organisation,” Mr Scindia said.

As part of the project these 500 post offices will be equipped with broadband connectivity so as to provide Web-enabled services such as instant money order. Employees in these post offices will be put through a specialised training package, wherein job description for each personnel has been prescribed. “Nearly 89 per cent of the network of India Post is in rural areas and therefore the network needs to be strengthened, which would bring the rural populace in direct communication with the outside world,” he said.

The Department of Post is taking a number of initiatives that will enable villagers to take full benefit of social schemes such as NREGS, National Old Age Pension Scheme. In one such project India Post has partnered with National Informatics Centre and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to create a delivery platform for the Orissa Government. Mr Scindia said that he has written to the Finance Minister to increase the rate of interest on postal savings scheme.

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