The government plans to digitise
nearly 1.3 lakh rural post offices by March 2017, IT and telecom minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad told Parliament on Friday.
The government has approved Rs
4,909 crore for modernisation of 1.55 lakh post offices including 1.29 lakh
post offices in rural areas, called Gramin Dak Sewak post offices. The
modernisation process will include setting up centralised data centres and
disaster recovery centres, networking of all post offices.
The budget also includes training
postmen who will be given solar powered hand held devices, connected to data
centers via SIMs, which will give rural consumers access to financial
remittances and saving accounts through biometric scanning apart from other
identification tools.
Telecommunication Consultant
India Limited ( TCIL) will provide the handheld devices alongside RICOH India
Limited, and also ensure connectivity, while Infosys will be the
Rural System Integrator, the Minister said in Parliament.
The devices will also offer core
banking solution through a mobile app, which ties into the Postal Department's
future plan of introducing payment bank services. Core banking solution has
been rolled out in 18,231 Post Offices, which is now the largest, surpassing
State Bank of India.
About 23.81 crores postal saving
bank accounts have been digitised, including 80,000 in rural areas. All the
25,297 departmental post offices in the country have been computerized while
data centre was started in Navi Mumbai in April 2013, and disaster recovery
centre has been functioning in Mysuru since May last year.
Source:-The Economic Times
