New Delhi, (Samajweekly) The Department of Posts under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is working expeditiously on a plan to open 4,903 new branches of post offices in 90 Left Wing Extremism affected districts in the country.
In a statement, the Department of Posts said that in the first phase, so far 1,789 branches have been opened and the remaining 3,114 new post office branches will also be started by the end of March, 2022.
The government has already sanctioned posts of Gramin Dak Sevak, Postmaster and Assistant Postmaster for these 3,114 new post offices to be opened in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. The concerned circles have been directed to make these post offices operational by the end of March, 2022.
Listing the achievements during the year 2021, the postal department said that the Postman mobile app has already been launched for 1.43 lakh post offices including 98,454 in rural areas. A record number of 47.5 crore real time delivery status queries of speed post were recorded from January to October, 2021 through this app.
Along with this, the postal department also installed GPS system in about 1,263 working mail motor service vehicles across the country.
Exhorting people to connect through social media, the department said that India Post is one of the first departments of the government to start its own social media accounts. So far, the department has more than 308,400 followers on Facebook, 323,800 on Twitter, 9800 on Instagram and 204900 on Ku. Videos related to the Department of Posts and its various schemes are being uploaded continuously on YouTube as well.
The department is also working expeditiously to redress the grievances of the people through social media. The social media cell of the department now works for 16 hours instead of 8 and according to government data, in the year 2021 from January 1 to November 15, a total of 2,39,133 complaints were registered through social media, out of which 2,37,187 were redressed. The redressal was done within the stipulated time period and the complaint resolution percentage was 99.2.
Detailing other achievements of 2021, the Department of Posts said that it has signed multilateral agreements with 120 countries for faster customs clearance. A total of 1.67 crore new accounts were opened and transactions of around Rs 8.19 lakh crore took place in Core Banking Service of Post Offices. A total of 2.26 crore Sukanya Samriddhi accounts were opened by the Department since the inception of the scheme till October, 2021, while 86 per cent of the total Sukanya Samriddhi accounts in the country have been opened through post offices only. From January 2021 to October 2021, a total of 13,352 Post Office Aadhaar Centres processed more than 1.49 crore applications for Aadhaar enrolment or update.
Giving the department’s revenue figures, it said that ‘Speed Post’ earned Rs 1,413.34 crore during the period from January 2021 to October 2021. Under an agreement with LIC, the Department of Posts earns more than Rs 100 crore per annum for the work of printing more than 2 crore policy bonds, sending it by speed post and delivering it to the right place.
Under the agreement with the Election Commission for delivery of Voter I-Cards through Speed Post across the country, in the first phase, the Election Commission will give 6-7 crore Voter ID cards for delivery through Speed Post to the Department of Posts which will earn an income of about Rs 100 crore in a year.
