India Post to team up with Indian Railways for courier business

Mumbai: The department of posts will soon enter into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian Railways to reserve dedicated compartments in all `Shatabdi'' and `Rajdhani'' trains for the delivery of parcels across the country.

The postal department would also sign another MoU with the Indian Railways this month to facilitate reservation of train tickets through post offices across the country.

"We will sign two MoUs with the Indian Railways for the delivery of our parcels in AC trains – Shatabdi and Rajdhani and booking of train tickets through our postal network by the end of this month," reports quoting I M G Kan, secretary, department of posts, said.

The aim, he said, is to deliver parcels in a fixed time frame and in a secured manner.

In order to streamline its operations and achieve a higher degree of competitiveness, the postal department would also invest Rs6,000 crore for technology upgrade across its postal network.

"India Post strongly needs to enhance its technology to compete with the private players," he said, adding that "We have put forward our proposal to the planning commission for consideration in the 11th five-year plan".

The postal department will also launch a new scheme, the 'Instant Money Order' (IMO), by February-end. The scheme has already been launched in Chandigarh.

Under the scheme, money will be transferred at other end within a few hours. While booking the money order, the clerk will issue a sealed 16-digit IMO number to the payee. The payee will remove the seal and convey the confidential number to the receiver.

The receiver will have to present the confidential number at any designated IMO post office counter, and will provide a proof of his identity. The receiver can receive the payment below Rs20,000 in cash. If the amount is more, payment will be made through cheque. The receiver can also receive the payment through a post-office savings bank account in the same IMO office.

With these new initiatives among others, DoP expects to do away with its budgetary deficit of Rs1,200 crore in the next 2-3 years and stage a comeback.