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Tukaram Dinabandhu never had a bank account. He hailed from a small village in Jharkhand, white washed houses in Delhi to earn a living for himself and his family. And he had never heard of Western Union Money Transfer. So every month he would avail the age-old method of money orders which was a long, cumbersome process. The money would take days to reach his village, which was not well-connected by road.

But the times have changed. It now takes only a few hours for his money to reach his family. Thanks to the post offices electronic money transfer services. Called the e-Money Order (e-MO), this electronic transfer can make your money reach its destination in 24-48 hours as against the 5-7 days taken by the conventional money order.

And like the e-MO, there are many facilities that our neighborhood post office now offers, via the use of technology, which make life a lot easier.

Brand New
A lot of things about the India Post are brand new. And the recent change of logo for a fresh one supplements the air of freshness that has enveloped the Indian postal services. The new logo, unveiled in September last year, aims to give the postal service a corporate look and reflects its new approach towards businessan approach which shall aim to leverage technology to connect the nation better. The new logo is of bird in flight, done in bold colors like red and yellow.

Launching the new logo, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, A Raja said, The bold strokes convey free flight. The choice of colors are red and yellow. Red has been chosen for its traditional association with the postal service. It embodies passion, power and commitment.

Apart from the logo, there are several things that are brand new in our centuries-old postal system. The largest postal network in the world with over 1.55 lakh post offices covering urban and rural areas, is now using web-based services to get larger than life. Some new initiatives of the Department of Posts include e-payment, instant money transfers, daknet, online franking and a new look for rural post offices.

However vast and well-connected our postal network might be, it has always been wrought by deficiencies and huge inconsistencies. A lot of it can be attributed to the fact that India is a multi-dialect country, which writes in numerous languagesbe it books, blogs or letters. This doesnt make the job of the post office any easier. Often, there is a problem of deciphering what is written and even a minor alphabetical or writing error can cause havoc while the letter is on its journey.

Then, there is the problem of stamping and pin codes. According to a survey done by India Post, pin code is mentioned on about 65% of the total mails that India Post handles. Out of this, around 10% are non-decipherable. And as most of the mails handled are hand-written, (only around 5% of the total volume are in the typed format) they further accelerates the problem. And it is no news that our postal services have been synonymous with delays and misplacementsfrom money orders, to accounts and letters.

And for a complete makeover, those who pull the strings have decided to leverage the one thing which has made a difference everywheretechnology. Says Ashok Pal Singh, deputy director general, department of Posts, Globally also, there have been examples of more corporatization and privatization of post offices. We have also been looking at changes all along. In 1994-95, we started our business development delivery, which brought in a more management-oriented outlook in the postal services. In 1995-96 the adoption of IT began. As a first step we started using VSATs. In the mid nineties there were around 2,500 post offices connected via VSAT. In 97-98 we began computerization of post offices.

So from money to minds, the postal services are displaying the digitization drive. Most of the solutions for India Post, the official postal service of India, have been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

Wired Money!
It finally dawned upon the government that it can exploit the reach and penetration of the postal network to offer instant, secure and hassle-free transfer and payment of funds. Its two type of money order services, i-MO (instant money order) and e-MO (electronic money order) are steps in this direction.

Through e-MO, the money is transferred to the closest destination post office and then the postman provides a door-to-door delivery. Depending on the batch time (the time for which transactions accumulate over the server), the e-MO takes only several hours to reach as against the traditional money order which takes anywhere between 5-7 days.

i-MO is another variant of the e-MO. The only difference it that when a sender books an i-MO, he is given a unique 16-digit pin number in a sealed packet. He can then disclose this pin number to the recipient who can then go and collect the money himself rather than waiting for the postman. Here, after the form is filled and submitted with money at the i-MO post office counter, the counter clerk books the i-MO immediately and hands over a printed receipt with a computer-generated confidential 16-digit i-MO number in a sealed condition. The16-digit i-MO number will not be known even to the booking clerk. The customer is required to tear off the seal and convey the confidential 16-digit i-MO number to the intended recipient over phone, SMS, e-mail, etc at his means and risk.

Instant Money Order (i-MO) is one of the most important services that India Post offers. This instant online money transfer service is a speedy, safe and reliable option for transferring money. i-MO is an instant web-based money transfer service through post offices (i-MO Centers) in India between two resident individuals in Indian territory. It enables money transfer of amounts ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 50,000 from designated i-MO Post Offices.

India Post has revamped the money order service and introduced an electronic mode for faster remittance of money. This move will reduce transmission of vouchers from one place to another and provide for a centralized information system on the money order service. It is also proving to have an immense impact in terms of cost-saving by India Post.

At the inception stage, around 2,500 post offices all over the country have switched over to electronic transmission of money orders.

Obviously, the booking facilities for this instant money order would be available at post offices where Wide Area Connectivity or Broadband connectivity is available. Once the process stabilizes, the department may consider enhancing the maximum limit of remittance. However, the present service of conventional domestic money orders will stay where and how it is.

Supplementing this transfer over the wires, there is the online payments facility. e-Payment is another service that leverages the tremendous reach of India Post. This department specializes in accepting across the counter payments and consolidating the same. It is a Many to One service through which telephone bills, electricity bills, etc paid by customers in post offices, are electronically consolidated and transferred.

Here, the post office collects bill payments from customers on the behalf of service providers or billers such as BSNL, Airtel, RTOs, etc. The post office then issues a receipt to the customer and accounts for the transaction.

The collection data is updated into a central server and is accessible to the biller through a web interface. The accounts are consolidated electronically and amount is paid to the service provider at one point, which is convenient.

Netting IT
The postal department of India is determined to utilize the miracle called Internet as much as it can. Its ambitious agenda includes taking the internet into rural areas. And it is well on its way to change the face of rural India, which isnt very well-connected. And who knows, we might be talking about bridging digital divide, rather than just an existing digital divide.

The state of Jharkhand is already rolling on the digital mode and artisans in Raghurajpur village of Orissa are now connected to the world through the Internet, thanks to the state transport bus, which is fitted with a Wi-Fi box.

The United Villages concept(?) is also called the Daknet or Internet Post, and the bus is like a postman. It connects twenty-five remote villages in Orissa to already Internet-enabled areas.
To facilitate Internet connectivity, the United Villages kiosk in Raghurajpur is equipped with a Wi-Fi antenna and computers and the villagers save their emails on the hard disk.

If that sounds like some crazy dream, then e-Post services will perhaps sound out of this world! e-Post enables any hand-written message, photograph or simple text message to be sent between e-Post centers (post offices) all across the country. These messages can then be downloaded at the addressee e-Post center and delivered by the postman to the recipient. The service can also be availed by individuals from their home or office, or by purchasing a prepaid card from the post office.

e-Post is a service through which printed or even hand-written messages are scanned and transmitted as email over the Internet. At the destination post offices, these messages are printed, enveloped and delivered by postmen like other letters to the postal addresses. e-Post is a sort of hybrid mail service. It connects the physical and the virtual world. Under this service, we scan the messages written in any form (postcard, inland letter, etc) and then send them electronically. They are printed at the destination post office and then delivered conventionally. Basically, an e-post message can originate in any form and it gets delivered electronically. This has lead to major cost and time saving for us. This service is also useful to businesses for bulk mailing etc, says Singh.

Keeping maximum coverage in mind, e-Post centers have been set up in post offices, covering all the districts and major towns. These e-Post centers are equipped with an Internet connection, computers, printers and other necessary equipment. However, the e-Post service are not limited to the e-Post centers. They can be availed from any post office. Irrespective of whether a customer is in a metropolis or in a remote village, he can send and receive e-Post messages. The messages booked at post offices which are not e-Post centers, are sent to the enabled centers for scanning and dispatch. Similarly, messages received at centers for areas beyond their delivery jurisdiction are printed, and sent to the concerned post offices for delivery.

Besides availing e-Post service through post offices, it can also be accessed from a customers home or office if he has a computer and Internet access. The customer can make his payment through a prepaid card that is available from selected post offices and other outlets. There are post tracking services also available, which enable the consumers to track their parcels and posts online.

Aiming the Arrow
Project Arrow is another major technology initiative of the DoP. This project was started in April 2008 with the aim of giving a new corporate identity to post offices. Under this, we try and give a more enabled environment to our users. We engage third party agencies for training etc. Our training and management is done by McKinsey and our logo was designed by OnM. Each of the post offices covered under this, provide a full range of IT services. We use things like video conferencing, benchmarking and are also setting up kiosks, says Singh.

Currently about 500 offices are covered under this project. The plan, according to Singh is to cover around 4,500 offices by mid 2010. He however says that the the nature of the challenges, that are fundamentally different for postal services, have to be kept in mind before taking any step. We are the largest postal network in the world and there are issues of bandwidth, connectivity, power and management that need to be looked into seriously.

As of now, over 10,000 post offices are computerized and work on LAN. There are 1,200 dedicated lease lines. There are also two important data centersone in Delhi and one in Mysore, which is also the software development center. 5,000 plus post offices have broadband and a lot of benefits accrue due to branch computerization. All this is bound to improve. But when you ask Singh about this technology adaptation happening rather late in the day for our post offices, he says, Evolution in post offices was happening all along, but bringing them to the limelight was never our aim. The post office is the only place where the common man can walk in unhesitatingly and ask for services. No matter what, we dont want to change that. We dont want the common man to be intimidated by glass doors, flashy interiors and LCD screens. We want to serve, not exercise power. The post office is the only arm of the government which serves rather than tries to control.

More on the Plate
And the things mentioned above are just a piece of the pie. The postal department has much more on its plate. This includes providing franking services online, enabling easy loans from post offices (a tie-up with SBI has already been established in rural Punjab), a new look for rural post offices and even payment of NREGA wages via e-payment mechanism.

Project Arrow which was launched in 2008, aims to revamp the rural post office network and enable it to play a larger role in the socio-economic transformation of the country. These new-age post offices would serve as a window to the world for the common man.

But well, cynicism enters the frame as soon as the word common man is heard. For a lot is promised to this breed but never really delivered. Lets hope that all the ambitious plans for our very own dak Khana dont get engulfed in the corruption and bribery sins, that are almost like an epidemic in this country.

Mehak Chawla
mehakc@cybermedia.co.in

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