Consultative committee takes stock of rural postal network

Of the 155,204 post offices in the country, 139,046 post offices are functioning in rural areas with an average coverage of 22.61 sq.km per rural post office.

This was disclosed by minister of state of communication and information technology Dr. Shakeel Ahmed during the review meeting of the consultative committee of the parliament attached to his ministry.

"Since Independence, the Department of Posts has expanded its network by over 664 per cent, becoming the largest postal network in the world" Dr Ahmad told the members of parliament.

He further added that 3,000 new branch post offices are to be opened in 11th Plan, of which 2000 would be departmental post offices and some of these would be in the rural areas.

Highlighting the details of the expansion, he said office equipments would be provided to 10,000 rural branch offices while 50,000 pillar letterboxes would be installed in villages with branch post offices.

In the current Five Year Plan, all departmental post offices and 64,000 extra departmental post offices would be computerised and connected to the National Data Centre. He said that the department has been mobilising savings from rural areas for Small Savings Bank and National Savings Certificates, disbursing pensions, undertaking verification of electoral rolls, etc, as part of its agency and retail functions.

Members cutting across party lines stressed the need for enhancing the postal network in rural areas, especially in North-Eastern States.

Senior officials of the ministry of communications and IT, and officials also attended the meeting from MTNL and BSNL.