CCEA okays computerisation of all post offices in country

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) today approved the Information Technology Modernisation Project-Phase II of the Department of Posts under which all post offices in the country will be computerised.

The decision will cover bth the Departmental and Grameen Dak Sevak (GDS) post offices, an official press release said.

The CCEA also accorded approval for creation of IT infrastructure, including the establishment of a Data Centre, networking of the departmental post offices, and development of scalable, integrated and modular software for all the operations of the Department of Posts.

The project will be implemented over a three year period covering 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13, the release said.

The total expenditure involved in this project will be Rs.1877.20 crore and it will cover all the post offices throughout the country in all the States and Union Territories. The Department of Posts will be floating tenders for procurement of hardware and development of software. Pilots will be held in rural and urban post offices. The final roll out will be completed by September 2012, the release said.

According to it, handheld devices will be provided to all the GDS post offices in the rural areas and necessary software applications developed.

Banking solution will be implemented for the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) scheme. Software integration solutions will be developed for mail operations, enabling tracking solutions for all registered and Speed Post articles, the release said.

Under the project, Postal Life Insurance services will be available in all the post offices, including rural post offices, in the country through computers and rural ICT devices. Comprehensive training will be given to staff in customer relations, application, IT management and system training skills.

The release said the country's post offices currently handle 654 crore pieces of mail annually. The POSB has a corpus fund of Rs.5,63,000 crore. Significant trends like liberalization and globalization; urbanization, increased demand for financial services, increased funding by government for weaker sections and rural sector, make it imperative that India Post develop new processes and supporting technology, the release added.

NNN