Project Arrow targets 727 post offices with corporate look

New Delhi, March 10 (IANS) After upgrading 1,000 post offices across the country, India Post is giving a corporate look to 727 more with better services under one roof as part of its "Project Arrow", says Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot.

"The look and feel of these post offices will be different," Pilot told IANS during an interaction, adding these offices will be fully computerised with additional features like electronic funds transfer, instant money order and computerised banking services.

"We picked some 1,000 post offices in 500 districts over the past year and spent  Rs.160-odd crore. The look and feel, the aesthetics, the uniform have all changed. They are like a one-stop shop for people looking at a host of services," he said.

"Once the atmosphere is more welcoming, footfalls will increase. And once the footfalls increase, more revenue will come in. And once more revenue comes in, it motivates our employees," he added.

"We have started getting results as well. In the last quarter of 2009, these 1,000 post offices saw a 23-percent jump in revenue," said the minister, who is passionate about promoting a culture of service with convenience and a smile in India Post.

The government has around 150,000 post offices across the country and more than 450,000 people working out of them. The idea is to make these offices find ways to counter the loss of revenues on account of telecom, internet
and courier businesses.

"Our job is not to make profit but deliver services to people. Fortunately, we still enjoy a lot of goodwill. We now send our people for training and give them incentives. We want them to be as self-sustaining as possible," Pilot said.

The young minister said he was personally monitoring progress with a video conference every two weeks with all the 30 postmasters general across the  country - to the extent that reasons are discussed even for a day's delay of any letter or parcel.

"The video conference is live. We analyse the data, it is web-enabled - so no fudging of data. We are actually tracking it so minutely that if four speed posts have returned, then I ask the concerned postmaster general to explain," he said.

"The bandwidth of tolerance level is so tight that performance is monitored every two weeks. If post offices don't deliver posts in time, then what's the point in selling gold coins and railway tickets? Our focus is excellent postal services."