Monday, May 23, 2016
India Post Payments Bank Will Be Functional By March 17: IT Minister
He said the proposed India Post payments bank will have immense potential to sell third party product and services.
Hyderabad: India Post's payments bank will start functioning from March 2017 and serve as a wider platform to implement financial inclusion programmes, IT & Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Sunday.
"We are going to start the postal payments bank by March 2017. Very soon we will go to the Cabinet and postal payments bank will become operational from March 2017," Prasad told reporters here.
He said the proposed India Post payments bank will have immense potential to sell third party product and services. About 50 companies, including some from abroad, are keen to partner with postal department for the payments bank, like World Bank, Citi from America, Barclay's from England, he said.
Reacting to a query, he said these institutions will offer third party services like insurance products, mutual funds, banking instruments and a variety of financial instruments. Asked on the interest shown by these institutions, the minister said, "...that board will decide, I'm only saying value addition of postal department it is attracting so much global attention." "...they will decide how much to give them. It is a call they will take," he said.
The payments bank of postal department will become a big platform of financial inclusion, Prasad said. "We are going to invest about Rs 800 crore -- Rs 400 crore will be invested by the department and the remaining amount will be equity part (mobilised as equity)," he said.
"Postal department has the widest network in India. We have 1,54,939 post offices in the country, out of that 25,560 are departmental post offices and 1,29,379 are branch post offices," he said.
"Under (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi, we have decided to re-energise the postal department for India's growth and financial inclusion," he further said. In August 2015, the RBI had given in-principle approval to 11 entities to start payments bank, including the postal department.
The approval is valid for 18 months and all the entities are required to submit a detailed business plan after which they shall be given the final nod.
Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad addressed the Heads of Circles ( CPMGs ) Conference of Postal department at Hyderabad on 22-05-2016.
Awarded the best performing circles / divisions.
L to R 1) M. S. Ramanujan Member (HR) 2) T. Murthy Member (O) 3) S. K. Sinha Secretary (Posts) 4) Hon'ble MoC Shri Ravishankar Prasad 5) Ashutosh Tripathi Member (P) 6) Sanjeev Thapar Member (Tech)
 |
Dr. Charles Lobo CPMG Tamil Nadu Circle receiving award from Hon'ble MoC. Shri Stephen Mervin Alexander PMG Chennai City Region also seen in picture
Brig. B. Chandrasekhar, CPMG UP Circle receiving award from MoC
He categorically said, Government is committed to reform the postal department. Two unique qualities of Department of Posts are Extensive network spread in nook and corner of the nation and Emotional connect of Postman with the rural life.
India is at the tipping point of digital revolution and Postal department should be the fulcrum of economic development esp in rural life.
Postal department's share in E-commerce is around 15% only, which needs to be improved drastically. The entire ecosystem to reform the postal department needs to change..
1. Pick up points to reach the customers proactively to collect and deliver posts/ parcels.
2. India Post Payments Bank need to be flawlessly implemented . It should act as a platform for 3rd party services. Human Resource Training needs to be given. Postal Payment Bank should be started definitely by March 17
3. Implementation of IT modernization solutions needs to be improved. We keep getting complaints of glitches leading to harassment to customers
4. Parcel Delivery .. New ideas to generate revenue with Technology infusion. Geo tagging and better location identification needs to be considered.
5. Human Resource capacity building ... Need to incentivize the performance... Gud incentive at right time will be a big motivation. Best practices should be replicated pan India.
6. Good sign boards pan India should be ensured.
7. Metamorphosis of postal department should be branded well.
8. Surety of punishment is more important than Severity of punishment... in case of disciplinary cases. Any laxity in timely completion of disciplinary proceedings should be viewed seriously.
9. Philately should be ventured as a new source of revenue generation. My Stamp, Commercialisation of stamps need to be tried to earn revenues.
10. Social Media should be effectively used for complaint redressal and creation of awareness regarding departmental initiatives/ schemes.
11. He expect all of us to work hard.. to achieve the goals of government.
12. Recruitment to fill up vacant posts should be done in a transparent and fair means. Any irregularity should be viewed seriously and responsibility should be fixed..
13. Shri. Ravi Shankar Prasad Congratulated the Department of Posts for good work done in the last 2 years in different schemes like Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, CBS, Postal ATMs, E-Commerce.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) related to proposed India Post Payments BankClick here to view details
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)