=
Bruhaspati Samal =
Circle
Secretary, AIPEU, Group-C &
Leader,
RJCM (Staff Side), Odisha Circle
To
begin with, we would like to recall the statement recorded in the Minute dated 30th December, 1851 of Lord Dalhousie,
said to be the father of India Post as follows.
“It makes the Post Office what under any other
system it never can be the unrestricted means of diffusing knowledge, extending
commerce and promoting in every way the social and intellectual improvement of
the people”
To prove this statement, honestly, if one asks
about an organization which serves India, the land of
heterogeneous racial, lingual, religious, and social culture upholding its rich
cultural heritage through religious pluralism with Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs,
Christians, Budhists, Jains etc. sharing their sorrows and happiness in more
than 19500 mother tongues inclusive of 22 scheduled languages and protects the
national unity, social cohesion, secular and federal structure and democratic
ethos, certainly, the name of India Post automatically comes to mind.
Competently
assisting the rulers, elite and mercantile community in its various forms in
ancient and medieval times, it has conveniently served both the British rulers
and general public in modern times as a forceful organization in raising
national and political consciousness long before the times of eMail and mobile
phones. Prior to independence, India Post, through a limited work force could
be able to develop a vast network of
communication even before the Railways and Telephones were introduced with wide
spread impact on the socio-economic life
of the nation through efficient and prompt service. From 23,344 post offices
primarily opened in urban areas, India Post has registered nearly a seven fold
growth during the period of last seven decades with 1.55 lakh post offices focusing
its expansion to rural areas and thus has been acknowledged as the largest
postal network of the world providing
postal facilities within reach of every citizen in the country at
affordable prices adopting every mode of transmission from bare foot to air
route.
But
the days are gone. Passing through ages, India Post has never remained as a
service Department. While it is providing poor man’s service like post cards
etc. on subsidized rate on one hand, it is charging the corporate sector in
commercial rates on the other and earning revenue to meet its own expenses by
running other products and services, both postal and non-postal for the common
man. Due to emergence of electronic alternatives, more demanding customers,
presence of organized / unorganized couriers for mail conveyance, financial
players like banks and insurance companies and above all the challenges of
globalization, corporatization and liberalization, India Post is now facing
competition which has compelled it to be commercial day by day rather than
remaining as a full public utility service department. Thus, to meet the
challenges and to face the competitors on one hand and to prove itself as an efficient and reliable communication network
as the main component of the communication infrastructure for playing a crucial role in the socio-economic
development and integration of the
country on the other, the Postal
department is doing a lot of things other than just delivering letters aiming
for a transformation with re-engineering of Business Processes and making it
compatible to suit the new ICT solutions and evolving new processes based on
customer needs. It
was not an easy task to change this 165 years old organization having 1.55 lakh
Post Offices with 3 tire system (Branch Post Office, Sub Post Office / Mukhya
Dak Ghar and Head Post Office / General Post Office) overnight. But the
employees could do it. Without the help of any professionals, the Postal
Assistants with same pay and without any additional remuneration / promotion
could be able to implement the I T modernization Project, 2012 successfully.
The staff members are quite committed and keep such ability to shoulder any
responsibility which cannot be shouldered by any other official in the
equivalent cadre in any other Central Govt. establishment.
It is worth mentioning
here that due to the sincere and devoted team efforts of its employees,
particularly those working at the grass root level, India Post could be able to
implement all the plans and policies of the Govt. successfully to rise to the
expectations of its customers and stakeholders which resulted to win the Prime
Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration for the year 2008-09
for its outstanding initiative “Project Arrow – Transforming India Post”. It
also won Silver Medal for outstanding performance in Citizen Centric Service
Delivery under Mail Network Optimization Project in the 16th
National Conference on eGovernance held in New Delhi from 11th to 12th
February, 2013. And later, we started performing better for which the Postal
Services beat the revenue targets three years in a row. "The revenue generation of Postal Services is increasing every
year and the targets for each coming year are raised by the Government," Minister of Communications and IT Shri Ravi
Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on 7th July,
2014. The government had set a revenue target of Rs 7,522.02 crore for the
Postal Services in 2011-12, while the Department registered revenue of Rs
7,899.40 crore. In the year 2012-13, the revenue stood at Rs 9,366.50
crore against a target of Rs 8,762.75 crore and in 2013-14, the revenue stood
at Rs 10,720.94 crore as against the target of Rs 9,787.52 crore.
Thus,
when everything was / is running smoothly and the India Post family was / is
trying its best to come out of the deficits, the sudden move of the Govt. in
2014 to corporatize India Post was not understood. A
question arises, whether corporatization of India Post is the only way out to
make good the deficit and convert this largest central Govt. establishment into
a profit making organization!
To
us, the answer is straightway ‘No’. Before
we justify our answer, we would like to compare the recommendations of Task
Force Committee on Leveraging the Post Office Network with that of United
States Postal Services (USPS).
Task
Force Committee - India Post:
Soon
after BJP led NDA Govt. came to power in 2014, a high power committee named as Task Force on
Leveraging the Post Office Network headed by Shri T.S.R. Subramaian Ex. Cabinet
Secretary consisting 8 other members having expertise in other
fields was appointed which submitted its
report in Novemeber-2014 recommending to divide India Post in to six units.
i.e. (i) Banking and financial services (ii) Insurance (PLI/RPLI), (iii)
Distribution of third party products (Services on behalf of private
parties on payment basis), (iv) Management of Govt. services (v) Parcel &
Packets and (vi) communication delivery.
The first five units were designated as Strategic Business Units and
sixth unit was left to deliver mails at subsidized rates. Under Deptt. of
Posts, a holding company “India Post
(Financial and other services) Corporation” was recommended to be formed. The
Corporation would consist of Board of Members and one Chairman from the Board
members. All the five separate subsidiary companies would also have separate
Boards. In the course of time, Govt. might disinvest its part of
holding and new corporation would raise fund from share market and
thereafter would also be listed in share market in future. It was stated
in the report that five Subsidiary Companies would make profit and contribute
to meet the loss of sixth unit. The Task Force Committee also recommended for
amendment of Indian Post Office Act 1898 and to bring another Postal Act.
“India Post (Financial and other services)” Corporation Act for reorganization
of Deptt. of Posts by creating new Corporate Structure.
And
in the meantime, the banking and financial sector has been corporatized since
01.09.2018 in the name of India Post Payments Bank Limited as the first PSU
under Department of Posts with the Certificate of Incorporation from the
Registrar of Companies, Ministry of Corporate Affairs under the Companies Act
2013.
Further as told by Sj. Manoj Sinha, the then
Minister Communications to PTI on 09.09.2018 soon after launch of IPPB, “Departments
of Posts is now reincarnating itself. After diversifying its business with Parcel
Directorate and Payments Bank, the department has decided to set up insurance
firm as a Special Business Unit in two years”. And now also,
the same intention has been repeated by the new Communication Minister Sj. Ravi
Shankar Prasad while addressing the Heads of the Circle Conference concluded
recently on 31.07.2019. Thus,
soon the Insurance sector (PLI / RPLI) may be brought under another PSU.
Task
Force Committee - USPS:
Through an executive order,
President Trump also created a Task Force in 2018 for overhauling the U.S.
Postal Service and the report submitted by the said Task Force drew a tepid
response from lawmakers as the agency’s own leadership rejected many of the key
proposals. The task force grounded its
recommendations in three principles:
-
The Postal Service should
“continue as a government entity”
-
USPS “requires a fundamentally
new business model”
-
Postal reform shouldn’t “shift
costs or risks” to the taxpayer or the Treasury.
As
per a report published in www.govexec.com on 12th
March, 2019, one key area
of disagreement between the administration’s recommendations and lawmakers’
vision for the agency surrounded the future of collective bargaining at the
mailing agency. Trump’s postal
task force, which he created through executive order last year, proposed the Postal Service join the rest of government in not allowing
its employees to negotiate over pay. Multiple members of the Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee rejected that suggestion,
while David Williams, a recently sworn-in member of the agency’s board of
governors, said he could think of “no way at all” such an approach would
address the most significant drivers of USPS’s precarious financial situation.
All
parties at the hearing demonstrated some overlap over their thinking on postal
issues. They agreed USPS is in dire financial straits and in desperate need of
reform, but it should remain a government agency. The Task Force also declined to
recommend privatization. Still, members of both parties raised concerns
about the report. Republican senators speculated that a recommendation to
create far fewer constraints for “commercial” mail would disproportionately
lead to higher costs for rural constituencies. Members of both parties
requested more insight into the analyses that went into the task force’s
recommendations and suggested the administration failed to use proper models.
Williams, the USPS board member, said, “The role of a public infrastructure is not to maximize profit, but
to maximize value to our American supply chains and to citizens, especially
those in rural and underserved urban areas.”
Gary
Grippo, the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant secretary for public finance
and one of the leaders of the Postal Task Force, said that his group had no interest in closing post offices, ending service
to all addresses in the country or charging disparate rates based for rural
customers. He
also clarified that the task doesn’t recommend closing post offices, reducing
service in rural parts of the United States or charging more for delivery in
rural areas. “The task force strongly believes that any potential solution
should not disadvantage rural or remote locations,” Grippo said, calling the Postal
Service delivery’s network to every address “a national asset and part of our
nation’s critical infrastructure.” Grippo
also argued that essential activities, such as person-to-person
correspondence or package delivery, as well as pharmaceutical delivery, should
continue to receive government-protected lower rates.
The
Treasury officials and task force members also broke with lawmakers and postal
leadership in recommending the Postal Service not take on any new business
unrelated to its “core competencies.” Weichert, lawmakers from both parties and others such as Robert Taub,
chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission said the administration, in
conjunction with Congress, should more clearly define what the Universal
Service Obligation to deliver to all addresses means in the 21st
century and better explain what services would qualify as essential.
Brief
Comparison- India Post Vrs.USPS:
Comparison between
India Post & USPS (2017-18) (Current data may vary)
Particulars
|
India Post
|
USPS
|
No. of Post Offices
|
154965
|
31324
|
Net Loss
|
Rs.11969.95 Crores
|
Rs. 26895.57 Crores
|
Loss per Post Office
|
Rs. 7,72,429.25
|
Rs. 85,86,250.16
|
No. of employees
|
433417
|
634447
|
Loss per employee
|
Rs.276176.29
|
Rs.423921.46
|
Letter boxes
|
485438
|
143000
|
Decline in mail Volume
|
0.83 Crore pieces
|
320 Crore pieces
|
A
developed country like America is considering to keep the independence of USPS
as a Govt. entity even when the loss per employee and the same per post office
are higher than that of India Post. Can’t we think the same status for this,
largest postal network of the world?
To
conclude, it can only be said that since India Post has occupied the nervous
system which transmits the words and thoughts of the nation, its significance
can be better understood by visualizing its absence. It has already won the
trust of 130 crore Indians and it has the ability to serve the entire nation
with due honour to our Hon’ble prime Minister’s slogan “SABKA SAATH, SABKA BIKAS, SABKA
BISWAS”. To us, no other Central Govt. establishment can touch the
heart and soul of every Indian the way India Post has touched. All stakeholders
should work consistently so that the existence of this vast organization may
not be jeopardized.
The
present Govt. has a noble vision to rebuild India achieving Five Trillion
Dollar Economy by 2024 in spite of so many challenges on national /
international issues related to economy, commerce, social and financial.
Communication and Information Technology will certainly play its vital role in
all these aspects to contribute to this National Ambition.
Lastly,
we would like to say that regime after regime has viewed India Post as a cost
centre. But, India Post has the potential to be a huge income centre and more
importantly a force multiplier for the economy. India Post has the
potential to be the flyover that links India and Bharat. It has the potential
to accelerate savings through financial inclusion. It can be the real and
virtual market platform for farmers. It can deliver both credit and insurance
to small farmers and micro enterprises. It is also the ideal one-stop shop for
government services. Every initiative will drive employment, income generation
and growth.
To
us, this can happen not by corporatization but allowing freedom and flexibility
to the Postal Department with a separate Ministry as Ministry of Posts so that
it could restructure itself and operate competently with functional autonomy
and financial independence having a separate budget and control by the
Department of Posts.
********
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