Sixth cadre Review of Indian Postal Service, (IPos) Group A

Cabinet nod for India Post payments bank Govt will set up 650 branches of the postal payments bank by September 2017, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday cleared a proposal to set up the India Post payments bank with a corpus of Rs.800 crore and has plans to have 650 branches operational by September 2017, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

“The Cabinet has cleared proposal of postal payments bank. We have 1.54 lakh post offices of which 1.39 lakh are rural post offices. 650 branches of postal payments bank will be established in the country which will be linked to rural post offices,” Prasad said.

The minister said the payments bank, which will be run by a chief executive officer, will be professionally managed and there will be a representation from various other government departments including the Department of Posts, Department of Expenditure, Department of Economic Services etc.

“Total architecture of postal payments bank is of Rs 800 crore which will have Rs 400 crore equity and Rs 400 crore grant. By September 2017, all 650 branches of postal payments bank will become operational. This we had planned for three years but now we will be doing it in a year,” Prasad said.

He said that all rural post offices will be given handheld devices by March 2017. “We are reinforcing it further. I have had discussion with my officers to give iPad and smartphones to postmen in urban post offices,” Prasad said. At present, there are 22,137 post offices with core banking facility compared to State Bank of India’s 1,666 branches.

Source : PTI

Heads of Circle Conference held at Hyderabad 20-22 May 2016

Heads of Circle (CPMsG) Conference held at Hyderabad from 20^th May to 22^nd May 2016. Shri Ravishankar Prasad Ji, Hon’ble Minister of Communications and Information Technology Govt. Of India gave way the awards to the best performing circles / divisions on 22^nd May 2016.

The brief of his speech as under:

Government is committed to reform the postal department. Two unique qualities of Department of Posts are Extensive network spread in nook and corner of the Nation and Emotional connect of Postman with the rural life. 

India is at the tipping point of digital revolution and Postal department should be the fulcrum of economic development especially in rural life. 

Postal department's share in E-commerce is around 15% only, which needs to be improved drastically. The entire ecosystem to reform the postal department needs to change.

1. Pick up points to reach the customers proactively to collect and deliver posts/ parcels. 

2. India Post Payments Bank needs to be flawlessly implemented. It should act as a platform for 3rd party services. Human Resource Training needs to be given. Postal Payment Bank should be started definitely by March 17.

3. Implementation of IT modernization solutions needs to be improved. We keep getting complaints of glitches leading to harassment to customers.

4. Parcel Delivery : New ideas to generate revenue with Technology infusion. Geo tagging and better location identification needs to be considered. 

5. Human Resource capacity building : Need to incentivize the performance... Good incentive at right time will be a big motivation. Best practices should be replicated pan India. 

6. Good sign boards pan India should be ensured. 

7. Metamorphosis of postal department should be branded well.

8. Surety of punishment is more important than Severity of punishment... in case of disciplinary cases. Any laxity in timely completion of disciplinary proceedings should be viewed seriously.

9. Philately should be ventured as a new source of revenue generation. My Stamp, Commercialisation of stamps need to be tried to earn revenues. 

10. Social Media should be effectively used for complaint redressal and creation of awareness regarding departmental initiatives/ schemes.

11. I work hard... I expect all of you to work hard to achieve the goals of government.

12. Recruitment to fill up vacant posts should be done in a transparent and fair means. Any irregularity should be viewed seriously and responsibility should be fixed.

13. Congratulated the Department of Posts for good work done in the last 2 years in different schemes like Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, CBS, Postal ATMs, E-Commerce.

India Post Payments Bank Will Be Functional By March 17: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Hyderabad: India Post's payments bank will start functioning from March 2017 and serve as a wider platform to implement financial inclusion programmes, IT & Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Sunday.

"We are going to start the postal payments bank by March 2017. Very soon we will go to the Cabinet and postal payments bank will become operational from March 2017," Prasad told reporters here.

He said the proposed India Post payments bank will have immense potential to sell third party product and services. About 50 companies, including some from abroad, are keen to partner with postal department for the payments bank, like World Bank, Citi from America, Barclay's from England, he said.

Reacting to a query, he said these institutions will offer third party services like insurance products, mutual funds, banking instruments and a variety of financial instruments. Asked on the interest shown by these institutions, the minister said, "...that board will decide, I'm only saying value addition of postal department it is attracting so much global attention." "...they will decide how much to give them. It is a call they will take," he said.

The payments bank of postal department will become a big platform of financial inclusion, Prasad said. "We are going to invest about Rs 800 crore -- Rs 400 crore will be invested by  the department and the remaining amount will be equity part (mobilised as equity)," he said.

"Postal department has the widest network in India. We have 1,54,939 post offices in the country, out of that 25,560 are departmental post offices and 1,29,379 are branch post offices," he said.

"Under (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi, we have decided to re-energise the postal department for India's growth and financial inclusion," he further said. In August 2015, the RBI had given in-principle approval to 11 entities to start payments bank, including the postal department.

The approval is valid for 18 months and all the entities are required to submit a detailed business plan after which they shall be given the final nod.

SOME IMPORTANT BO RULES TO BE OBSERVED BY GDS

What are all the issues / lapses which will lead to issue of charge sheet ?

The following are the main issues / lapses which will cause issue of charge sheet to GDS and lead to trouble.

(1) Suppression of SB / RD deposits or delay in credit.

(Rule - 131, 141 & 143(3) of BO Rules)

(2) Suppression of money tendered for opening of accounts.

(Rule-145 (1), 129 & 130 of BO Rules)

(3) Suppression of RPLI premium.

(Rule-51A & 133 of BO Rules)

(4) fraudulent / forgery of SB / RD withdrawal.

(Rules - 134, 144, 143(8) & 136 of BO Rules)

(5) Failure to supervize the work of GDS MD by GDS BPM.

(Rule-9 of BO Rules)

(6) Shortage of Cash.

(Violation of Rule-11 of BO Rules)

(7) Fraudulent payment of Money Orders.

(Rule-121 (2) volume-VI part-III)

(8) Non maintenance of BO accounts.

(Rule-133 of BO Rules)

(9) Loss of Registered articles by GDS MD.

(Rule-86 of BO Rules)

(10)Non opening of BOs

(Rule-5 of BO Rules)

(11)Delay in credit of MS-87(a) by altering.

(Rule-104, 124, 133 & 134 of BO Rules)

(12)Non delivery of unregistered letter by GDSMD.

(Rule-66 of BO Rules)

Revival of J&K Branch of IPASP

To pave way for the early revival of the J&K Branch of the IPASP association, it is suggested that a meeting may be convened to deliberate upon this immensely vital issue.

Suggestions from the IP/ASP cadre Officers are solicited and the designate members of the earlier constituted ad-hoc body are requested to lead the way.

List of services to be covered under RICT

Services Available In The RICT Branch Office Device

Following are the services available in the Rural ICT project. The handheld device supplied to the Branch Post offices has the capabilities to do the following services in the BO itself without depend the account office.

1. Maintenance of Rural Branch Post Office accounts.

ü  Cash Management -enable BPM to view/update beginning-of-the­ day and end-of-day cash balances

ü  Accountability of sumps and Postal stationary

ü  Transaction Management

2. Financial Banking at Rural level.

ü  Opening of new account (Small Savings Scheme & No- frills)

ü  Account Deposits and Withdrawals

ü  Electronic Money Order (eMO) Disbursement & Booking

ü  MGNREGS Enrollments & Disbursement

3. Insurance Service at Rural level

ü  New Enrollments

ü  Claims and loan payment

ü  Printing renewal premium receipts for the customer

4. New Retail Services

ü  Phone recharge coupons

ü  Sale of application forms e.g. passport forms

ü  Reservations of train and air tickets

ü  Sale of books

ü  Commission\Fee collection

ü  E-commerce (give orders\view commodity rates)

ü  Retail channel for other\private players

5. Mail Service at Rural level

ü  Booking & Delivery of registered articles

ü  Speed Post Booking & Delivery

6. Assist Government of India

ü  Data Collection

ü  UIDAI enrollment

ü  Other Government Welfare Schemes\Services

ü  Provide detailed MIS reports and management dashboards