Open Forum
New Delhi, 22 February 2012
Postal Policy
CHALLENGING COURIERS
By Proloy Bagchi
The Indian postal
system was in the news recently for something that appeared to be a little more
positive. The Minister of Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal, is reported to
have turned his focus on India Post, a department that also happens to be in
his charge. He has done so none too soon though, as the department seems to
have been sliding downhill rather rapidly despite vigorous efforts made by one
of his predecessors Jyotiraditya Scindia, to modernise post offices and
introduce into them Information Technology.
Starting
from scratch, rejecting the departmental logo and introducing a new one, he
devised Project Arrow under which hundreds of post offices were done-up and
computerised with a view to improving mail delivery, banking and other
services. Soon, the department bagged in 2010 the PM’s award for excellence in
public administration. However, the parameters on which the department was
adjudged for the award are not known as the improvement that was sought to be
brought about in the quality of service largely remained unachieved. Scindia
was taken off the ministry even as the Project initiated by him was in the
process of implementation. And, therefore, as normally happens in Government,
it lost steam.
Now Sibal is
talking of a national postal policy which, apparently, will spearhead action to
“take on” the couriers and to introduce in the more-than-a-century-old Post
Office Savings Bank (POSB) most of the banking operations that are carried out
by regular banks. While bestowing on POSB the status of a regular bank will
have to be decided upon in consultations with several other departments of Government
of India and its agencies, action to meet the challenge posed by private
couriers will need to be stepped up by none other than India Post.
At the
outset, Sibal may have to look for the weaknesses that enabled the private
couriers to make significant inroads into the preserve of India Post. The most
important reason would seem to be the want of quality in the performance of the
department insofar as mail delivery is concerned. Over the years the plummeting
standards of performance left the field wide open for couriers to troop in. The
department could very well cite exogenous reasons for the same, but many were
the ones that could be attributed to its own lack of initiatives.
Time was
when the Indian postal system was acknowledged as one of the finest in the
world. Although working in a monopolistic environment it had that in-built
system of monitoring mail handling to ensure quality that was coupled with a
spirit of rendering service to the community. With all 1st class
mails being flown down to the closest air terminal of destinations without any
surcharge (not prevalent even in the West) and in-train sorting of letter mail
on almost all railway routes, the department developed an unique capacity to
reach most of the letters to distant destinations within 48 hours. On occasions
letters would reach faster than the then-prevalent telegrams. The ‘60s, ‘70s
and ‘80s were its glorious decades.
Later,
unfortunately, the needs of the Railways came to the fore. With a view to
enhancing their passenger carrying capacity they summarily did away with the
coaches in which mail used to be sorted piece by piece. And, later speeding up
of trains on the same old shaky tracks made such sorting impossible, anyway,
taking that edge away from the department that ensured quality. Soon thereafter
the country witnessed convergence of IT and telecommunications with the help of
the World Wide Web that acted as a midwife to give birth to an era of instant
communications.
To start
with, it was e-mail by which one could exchange messages containing texts,
images, and videos with multiple addresses. While e-mail was initially
restricted only to those who had access to computers, the cell phone put the
means of instant communication into the hands of millions of those who had just
a palm-sized handset. With the advent of “smartphones”, technology has put
virtually a portable computer in the hands of the people with facility, inter
alia, of sending and receiving e-mails and conversing over long distances. Once
“cyberspace” became the medium of instant communication conventional messaging,
known now as “hard messaging”, had to take a hit.
And it did.
The volume of mail traffic in India
fell to 6,677.18 million pieces in 2006-07 from the figure of 15,749.30 million
in 1997-98 – a hit of severe proportions. Internationally too, there were clear
signs of the Internet eating into postal systems. Statistics provided by the
Universal Postal Union (UPU) show that between 2008 and 2009 domestic mail
volumes were globally down 12 per cent. Obviously, the World Wide Web had a
worldwide impact and India Post was not alone in losing its “bread &
butter” business.
With the
sharp decline in traffic, India Post virtually threw in the towel. Instead of
aggressively trying to trap the traffic captured by the progressively
consolidating courier industry, it drastically downsized its mail establishment
adversely impacting its efficiency. Whatever mail it received – mostly
documents, periodicals and other 2nd class stuff – got horribly
delayed in delivery. Even the department’s answer to couriers, the EMS Speedpost,
could not match its potential because of lack of manpower and, of course, that
kind of agility which is needed to compete with private operators.
No wonder
people lost confidence in it. Predictably, the couriers moved in, capturing the
traffic originating from corporations, banks and other sundry mailers. They
seem to be cashing in on the reported “exponential” growth in mail volumes
unleashed by the country’s rapid economic growth and widespread use of the very
same technology that hit the department hard. IndiaKnowledge@Wharton, an online
resource, found that Pitney Bowes, a mail-management service-provider, is
bullish about India
finding in it, inter alia, “... rapid increase in cell phone subscriber-base,
statement-based credit and debit card usage, and computerized billing by
utilities” suggesting an upward trend in mail traffic. Only it was escaping the
departmental radars.
One would,
therefore, tend to think it is not a policy that is necessary to “take on” the
couriers. What is needed is revamping of the system with proper, pragmatic
staffing and a new work-culture that is committed, agile and vigilant to raise
the standards of performance by several notches. The Post Office is synonymous
with mail (including its express variety); all its other activities, even those
related to social and financial sectors, are only add-ons. It is, therefore,
imperative for it to take steps to revitalise its mail delivery system to
re-inspire confidence among its users and give the couriers a run for their money.
If there is a will there is a way.--INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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