Department of Posts starts its own data center

Department of Posts starts its own data center

Solutions hosted on the Data Center will be accessed by all Post offices across India

MUMBAI, INDIA: The state of the art Data Centre of Department of Posts has been inaugurated by the Minister of Communications & IT and Law & Justice, Kapil Sibal, at Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC), Navi Mumbai last week.

The Data Centre provides a facility to host Department's servers and manage its data infrastructure centrally, thus enabling all the post office service solutions to be operated through one large network.

These solutions hosted on the Data Center will be accessed by all post offices across India for carrying out daily transactions. Details of these transactions carried out by different post offices will be available in the Data Center on almost a real time basis and the information could be accessed across the network through secure mechanism.

Availability of centralized information along with core banking facility will enable customers with anytime and anywhere access to their savings bank accounts and insurance policies through any post office counter, ATM, e-banking portal through mobile or internet. It will make deposit and withdrawal of money, payment of insurance premium easy and flexible for the common man.

Wage disbursement and pension payments for the different Government schemes will be made with greater speed, efficiency and reliability and the visibility of the transactions will ensure greater transparency in these citizen benefit schemes.

Availability of real time integrated information will also offer increased consistency and reliability in mail, parcels and logistics delivery system in line with global standards, resulting in better public service to the people.

The Data Center is one of the many initiatives which have been undertaken by the Department of Posts as part of the IT Project which aims at:

• Modernization and computerization of all Post offices in the country

• Development of software applications covering all operations of the Department -Mail Operations, Postal Banking, Insurance, Finance and HR

• Establishment of IT Infrastructure - Data center, Wide Area Network (WAN) based networking of the departmental post offices

• Deployment of Rural Information Communication Technology (Rural ICT) infrastructure in all 1,30,000 rural post offices
• CIOL Bureau

e-Indian Postal Order announced for all

e-Indian Postal Order announced for all

RTI process gets further boost with the introduction of ‘e-Indian Postal Order’ for all

NEW DELHI, INDIA: India Post (Dept. of Posts) has launched electronic Indian Postal Order (e-IPO) for Indian Citizens living in India. Last year the Department had launched the e-IPO for Indian Citizens living abroad across the globe to facilitate them for paying online fee for seeking information under the RTI Act, 2005. e-IPO is a facility to purchase an Indian Postal Order electronically for paying RTI fee on-line through e-Post Office Portal.

Under this service, the applicant needs to register at e-Post Office portal of India Post or through India Post web site (where a link for e-Post Office has been provided) to create his/ her profile for the first time. Both debit and credit cards of any Bank powered by Visa/ Master can be used for this purpose. After paying the fee on-line one just need to annex the print-out of the receipt to the RTI application.

Two other services are also launched on the occasion:

Locality-based Pin Code Search Directory 
This will facilitate the public to locate Pin Code up to locality level for usage of correct Pin Code on their mail articles thereby helping in expediting mail processing. This facility can be accessed through India Post web-site.

Value addition to e-Post service
Many to One : This facilitates sending of same ePost message from many senders to one recipient on recipient's email box; and
One to many : This facilitates sending of same ePost message from a sender to multiple recipients on recipient's email inbox.

‘e-Post' facilitates the customer to send their messages to any address in India with a combination of electronic transmission and physical delivery through a network of almost 1,55,000 Post Offices. In addition, corporate customers can also avail e-Post facility at special rates and other value additions. Today the following value additions to the e-Post service has been done.

CIOL Bureau 

50 फीसदी डीए को मूल वेतन में जल्द ही मर्ज करने की है तैयारी

50 फीसदी डीए को मूल वेतन में जल्द ही मर्ज करने की है तैयारी

38 लाख कर्मियों, 25 लाख पेंशन- भोगियों को लुभाने की कवायद

20 हजार करोड़ का अतिरिक्त बोझ पड़ेगा सरकारी खजाने पर

केंद्र सरकार के कर्मचारियों और पेंशनरों तथा इनके परिवारजनों के तकरीबन ढाई करोड़ वोटों पर अब सरकार की नजर है। तकरीबन 38 लाख कर्मचारियों और 25 लाख पेंशनभोगियों को लुभाने के लिए शीघ्र ही 50 फीसदी महंगाई भत्ता (डीए) को मूल वेतन में मर्ज करने की तैयारी है।

इसका फैसला अगले पखवाड़े हो सकता है। यदि ऐसा हुआ तो सरकारी खजाने पर लगभग 20,000 करोड़ रुपये का अतिरिक्त बोझ पड़ेगा।

इसे ट्रेड यूनियन से जुड़े पदाधिकारियों का दबाव कहें, रेलवे समेत सभी केंद्रीय कर्मचारियों के अनिश्चितकालीन हड़ताल की धमकी या फिर ढाई करोड़ वोटरों को लुभाने की कोशिश कहें, लेकिन सच्चाई यही है कि डीए मूल वेतन में मर्ज हो रहा है। तकरीबन 12 लाख कर्मचारियों का प्रतिनिधित्व करने वाले संगठन एआईआरएफ के महासचिव शिव गोपाल मिश्रा का कहना है कि पिछले दिनों ही उन्होंने इस बारे में प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय और वित्त मंत्रालय से पत्राचार किया है। वह इस सिलसिले में व्यय सचिव से भी मिले थे।

तो डीए 101 फीसदी हो जाएगा:

संकेत यही है कि जब लेखानुदान के लिए संसद का सत्र चलेगा, तभी इसकी घोषणा कर दी जाएगी। नेशनल फेडरेशन ऑफ इंडियन रेलवेमैन के प्रेस सचिव एस एन मलिक ने पीएमओ के सूत्रों के हवाले से बताया कि इस बारे में कैबिनेट नोट बन गया है। इससे संबंधित फाइल इस समय पीएमओ में पड़ी है। अगले सप्ताह जब संसद का सत्र शुरू होगा, तभी किसी दिन इसकी घोषणा हो जाएगी।

गौरतलब है कि इस समय केंद्रीय कर्मचारियों का डीए 90 फीसदी तक पहुंच गया है और एक जनवरी को ही फिर से डीए में बढ़ोतरी ड्यू हो गई है। यदि इस बार भी डीए में 11 फीसदी की वृद्धि होती है तो डीए 101 फीसदी हो जाएगा। मलिक का कहना है कि पांचवें वेतन आयोग के समय जब कर्मचारियों का डीए 72 फीसदी पर पहुंचा था, तभी बिना कहे 50 फीसदी डीए मूल वेतन में मिला दिया गया था। इस बार ऐसा नहीं किया जा रहा है।
 दै नि क  भा स्क र

India Post Set to Make Banking Easy

Have you ever thought about using your ATM card to withdraw money deposited in your post office savings account from any other post office in the country? Well, India Post is on a mission to make this possible very soon.

The department is working to get all the 1,50,000 post offices in the country networked under the project titled ‘India Post-2012’. The project which costs `5,000 crore will be implemented in five different phases. All the 25,000 post offices in the state will also be integrated with the ambitious scheme.

In the first phase of the project, six head post offices, one each at Neyyattinkara, Kottarakkara, Punalur and Kalpetta and two in Kozhikode will be networked. The official inauguration of the project is scheduled to take place in March. Once it is inaugurated, all the account holders in the post offices will be able to transact money and carry out other banking operations at any of the networked post offices.

In the second phase, 112 post offices, which will include head post offices and sub-post offices, will be networked by the end of this year. “We have 51 head post offices and 1,456 sub post offices in Kerala. All these will be

networked in the beginning and the remaining regional post offices will also be networked very shortly,” said Sumati Ravichandran, Post Master General (Business Development), Kerala Postal Circle.

She added that it’s the initial stage in the process of shifting towards banking and once completed, the 150-year-old India Post will transform into banks for the people.

In what appears to be an added advantage for the account holders at post offices, ATM facilities will also be made available at all the networked post offices at the earliest. On a pilot basis, an ATM has started operations at the Head Post Office at T Nagar in Chennai.

To further augment the scheme, India Post is planning to set up more post offices very soon. Santhi S Nair, Chief Post Master General, Kerala Circle, expressed optimism about getting ATM facility in Kerala post offices too at the earliest.

“We will have the ATM facility very soon. But we don’t have the licence to interconnect the ATMs of post offices with other banks. Once we get the licence, we will be able to provide even better services to the people,” she said. She added that the request in this regard was already submitted before the RBI.

Customers are the happiest lot at the announcement of the scheme, as they would be able to substitute post offices for their banking needs.

“I have a savings account at the Chinnakkada post office. But so far, I could not transact money in my account through other post offices. Once the post offices are interconnected, it will be useful to many customers who visit post offices regularly to deposit or withdraw money,” said Arun M, a customer.

By Express News Service - KOLLAM

Published: 03rd February 2014 07:44 AM

Last Updated: 03rd February 2014 07:44 AM

India Post to install 3000 ATMs, 1.35 lakh micro-ATMs by September 2015

India Post to install 3000 ATMs, 1.35 lakh micro-ATMs by September 2015

PTI | Jan 26, 2014, 10.54AM IST

MUMBAI: Even as its application to start a commercial bank is pending, India Post has drawn a massive plan to install as many as 3,000 ATMs and 1.35 lakh micro-ATMs at the ubiquitous post offices across the country for savings account holders by September 2015, a top official has said. 

"We will be starting with three ATMs to be installed in New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore on February 5 and then ramp it up gradually," postal department secretary Padmini Gopinath told a select group of reporters here over the weekend. 

She said 1,000 ATMs with the India Post branding will be put in within the first year, which will be ramped up massively to 3,000 in the next 18 months. 

To start with, the ATMs can be used only by 26 crore savings account-holders who save with the postal department, but Gopinath exuded confidence that within six months of the launch, they will get the interoperability permission from the Reserve Bank. 

Postal savings are worth around Rs 6.05 trillion, which is half the savings in the largest lender SBI and more than double that of the largest private sector lender ICICI Bank. 

Through interoperability, India Post will join the National Financial Switch, which will benefit India Post account holders to transact at the banks' ATMs and vice versa, she added. 

India Post has been working with software major Infosys on this project, she added. 

The micro ATMs will be handheld devices to be operated at the post office level while the ATM will be similar to the one operated by any commercial bank, she added. 

The postal department, which has 1.55 lakh post offices over 90 per cent of which are in villages, offers the savings account to people across the country and pays an interest of 4 per cent per annum for such deposits. The account offers cheque facility at present. 

It can be noted that the Department of Posts is fighting a very contentious battle to convert itself into a full fledged bank, asserting that its reach can help achieve the goal of financial inclusion. 

However, the finance ministry has expressed some reservations about the idea, while Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has exuded confidence of winning over his Cabinet colleagues to get the go ahead for the 'Postal Bank'.

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