The Department of
Post (DoP) is on a technology upgrade drive. The department plans to set up
1,000 automated teller machines (ATMs) across six states —Assam, Uttar Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu — as part of its ongoing
modernisation drive, said Manjula Parasher, secretary, posts.
“We will start execution of our modern technology
programme across six circles by the end of this year,” said Parasher. “This will
help in people getting core banking facility etc. We plan to have 1,000 ATMs in
a phased manner. The process for this will start by the
year-end.”
The DoP has selected five major technology companies
for five of its technology advancement projects.It has issued a
Letter of Intent to Infosys for two projects including rural system and
financial services integration; Tata Consultancy Services for change management;
Sify for network integration and Reliance Communications Infrastructure for data
centre.
The department plans to start execution of some of
these projects by end of this year across six states on a pilot
basis.It has already received approval for Rs 1,877 crore to be
spent across these projects over a period of two years and will seek additional
funds when the need arises.“Funds of Rs 1,877 crore have been
approved,” said Parasher. “We will go ahead with that. We may need more money
because implementation in some of the cases may last over six-nine
years.”The department will computerise all of its 1.6 lakh post
offices across the country by 2013 with over 24,000 department post offices
already computerised by March.
250 computerised post offices in
J-K
With an aim of providing better services to the
people, the DoP has decided to computerise at least 250 post offices in Jammu
and Kashmir during the current year. “During this year, the department has taken
the ambitious plan of computerising 250 post offices and modernising them to
make them relevant,” said John Samuel, chief postmaster general, J&K Circle.
