PM likely to approve India Post revival plan
Task Force proposes to divide India Post into five biz verticals
New Delhi, January 6:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to review a report on the revival of India Post soon.
Official
sources said that Minister for Communications and Information Technology
Ravi Shankar Prasad has approved the task force report and will submit
it to the prime minister for a review.
The task force
had submitted its report to Prasad in December, recommending division of
India Post into five verticals, including one each for banking,
insurance and e-commerce, with India Post being the holding company.
“The minister
is expected to meet the prime minister on Wednesday for an in-principle
approval. The task force has highlighted priority areas, which would
give a fillip to our postal department,” an official told BusinessLine.
The Centre is also investing ₹5,000 crore for IT modernisation in India Post.
He said
priority tasks include providing banking and insurance services to the
public and making e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Flipkart and
Snapdeal use India Post’s services.
“The main
purpose is to utilise the network in line with the Prime Minister’s
vision of reaching rural areas for financial services through innovation
and digital connectivity instead of mere postal services,” the official
added.
The task force, chaired by former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian, was set up by the Prime Minister last year.
The idea was to leverage India Post’s wide reach across India.
Snapdeal has
already partnered with India Post to work on bringing thousands of
weavers and artisans from Varanasi on its website. The online company
has launched a pilot with India Post to set up facilitation desks at
Varanasi post offices to enable local weavers to sell their products on
its platform.
Source : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/
