FORMS

Saturday, August 5, 2017

MODERNISATION AND MECHANISATION OF POSTAL SERVICES -- RS -- Q & A

 GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS
DEPARTMENT OF POSTS

RAJYA SABHA
UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.2298
TO BE ANSWERED ON 4TH AUGUST, 2017

MODERNISATION AND MECHANISATION OF POSTAL SERVICES

2298. SHRIMATI THOTA SEETHARAMA LAKSHMI:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

(a)       the details of the process of modernisation and mechanisation of the postal services and what it entails;

(b)       whether the budgetary allocation for mechanisation and modernisation of postal services has increased in the past three years, if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor; and

(c)        the reasons for the disparity between budget estimate 2014-15 and revised estimate 2014-15 for mechanization and modernisation of the postal services?

ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE (IC) OF THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS &
 MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI MANOJ SINHA)

           
(a)  The IT Modernization Project of Department of Posts was approved by the Government in November 2012 with a total outlay of Rs 4909 crore. The Project involves computerization, modernisation and networking of approximately 1, 55,000 Post Offices in the country, including approximately 1, 30,000 Branch Post Offices in rural areas run by the Gramin Dak Sevaks.

The scope of the project is as under :

1.    Modernization and computerization of all Post Offices in the country;

2.    Deployment of Rural Information & Communication Technology (Rural ICT) solution in all the 1,30,000 rural Branch Post Offices in the country by supplying computer hardware, solar charging devices and providing network connectivity to them;

3.    Establishment of IT Infrastructure, viz., Data Centre, Disaster Recovery Centre and Wide Area Network (WAN) based networking of all the departmental post offices, mail offices, accounts offices and administrative offices;

4.    Development of software applications covering all operations of the Department viz., counter operations,  mail processing, online tracking and tracing of the mail article, Banking, Insurance, Finance & Accounts and Human Resources management functions;
   
5.    Provision of multiple channels of user interaction apart from the conventional post office counters. These include web portals, ATMs, call centers, employee help desks, SMS gateway etc.; and

6.   Preparing Postal employees and Grameen Dak Sewaks for the changes at their workplace on account of induction of technology and training them for this.
           
(b)       The details of the budget allocations under Mechanisation and Modernisation and of postal services under the plan head during the past 3 years are as follows:-

Financial Year
Budget Estimate (B.E)
(Rs. in crores)
Revised Estimate (R.E)
(Rs. in crores)
2014-15
616.31
172.00
2015-16
357.20
412.70
2016-17
300.00
303.61

(c)         Due to curtailment of overall funds by Ministry of Finance for the Department of Posts under Plan segment from Rs. 800 crore (B.E) to Rs. 300 crore at (R.E) stage, there was reduction of funds under ‘Mechanisation and Modernisation’ from Rs. 616.31 crore to Rs. 172 crore. This led to disparity between B.E and R.E for the year 2014-15 under ‘Mechanisation and Modernisation’ of Postal services.

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