Rediff has an article on how the Indian Postal Service is reinventing itself. [Postmen to deliver more].
In an innovative move the Department of Posts has joined hands with Idea Cellular and will soon be marketing Idea SIM cards from post offices in regions where the cell company operates. There are also plans to tie up with Nokia to sell handsets in the future. ... There is also a proposal of post offices doubling as "delivery centres" of Kodak Colour Labs in semi-urban and rural areas. ... Meanwhile, the postal department has also started marketing the non-life policies of Oriental Insurance from the beginning of the year.
This was a very pleasant surprise for me. I had always imagined the Indian Postal Service to be an outdated, slow, dying behemoth; and the postman an overworked, underpaid sorry man. More so after coming to the US, where the USPS [United States Postal Service] (a giant in its own right) runs an amazingly smooth job and is top notch in it's service and facilities offered. The Indian post is subsidised by the govt. not so the USPS. Of course they are greatly helped by the tons of junk mail in the US, but that deserves an entire entry of its own. Our own daak tried to modernize themselves a while back .. by providing email services from post offices. I have no idea whether it was implemented widely and how well. But good news this. If the Indian Post is able to pull it off, they will greatly profit by these value added services provided to the junta.
Posted by anya at August 13, 2004 03:37 PM | TrackBackIndeed its refreshing to see that the Indian postal service is taking steps to improve the standard of service and also looking into other areas of services. But In certain ways USPS is far worse that its indian counterpart,,it may operate smoothly in major cities...but i have had personal experiences of them majorly making a mock of urgent shipments/docs .... another thing here to compare would be the population thats served ...what say?? :D...nice blog btw :D
Posted by: Manu at August 14, 2004 12:06 AMthanks manu ..
really? i havent had any complaint abt USPS .. yet; but then i have never sent anything by express mail etc.
no doubt that the population served is a major issue , and the indian post has maybe a wider reach considering the villages etc .. but i dont know abt the volume of mail .. USPS deals in an unimaginable amount of mail every day. as i had said earlier .. in india it feels like the post is an antiquated entity .. feels like they are losing their importance - rapidly.
Hmmm, What Manu says is true. The population being served by the IPS is immense. Yet, they continue to do their job, and i must say, they do it well.
Since i have not interacted with any other postal service, i cannot comment on their performance, but I am all praise for the indian postal service.
They were laid back once, but in the past three years, I have never experienced a single delayed delivery or a missed parcel.
Yeah, i still send out a fair bit of snail mail. ;)
Posted by: Teju at August 16, 2004 12:15 AMYeah... it be good news. All I can remember about the dakiya is the time our annual results came via post...
Posted by: toinks at August 16, 2004 07:54 AMI think the postmen should leave their mail in boxes at the base of all apt. bldgs and outside houses. This will help postmen a lot and save time and energy. This was suggested earlier but dunno people strictly follow it or not. but anywyas, the mail man does an excellent job anytime, and also some of the facilities provided by the Indian post offices are good. One thing, I have never seen a grumbling or whiny postman till now :)
Posted by: pseudofreud at August 18, 2004 04:43 PMtrue that.
Posted by: anya at August 21, 2004 09:03 PM