Task Force proposes to divide India Post into five biz verticals
New Delhi, January 6:
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.
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