YEAR END REVIEW-2020, DEPARTMENT OF POSTS

For more than 150 years, the Department of Posts (DoP) has been the backbone of the country’s communication and has played a crucial role in the country’s social economic development. It touches the lives of Indian citizens in many ways: delivering mails, accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes, providing life insurance cover under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) and providing retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc.

The DoP also acts as an agent for Government of India in discharging other services for citizens such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) wage disbursement and old age pension payments. In the year 2020, the Department strengthened its supply chain through capacity upgradation and expanding Road Transport Network. It played important role in countering impact of COVID-19 pandemic by enabling doorstep delivery of financial services and medicines etc. The Year End Review for Department of Posts highlights the achievements, and progress on various initiatives of department in the year 2020.

Supply Chain and e-Commerce: Mail, Express Services and Parcel:

Capacity upgradation: Parcel handling capacity has increased from 6.0 crore per annum to 7.5 crore per annum.
Road Transport Network: National level dedicated Road Transport Network rolled out on 56 routes touching 80 cities. Approx. 15000 bags containing 75 tonnes of parcels are being carried daily through the setup network.
Improvement in Pan – India Average Transit Time for Speed Post: Average Transit time of Speed Post reduced from 105 hrs. in July,2019 to 81 hrs. in Feb,2020.

Real–Time updation of Delivery: Postman Mobile App implemented in 1.47 Lakh POs including 98,454 post offices in rural areas. Real time delivery status of 14 crore Speed Post and Registered articles done through the Postman Mobile App.
E-Commerce exports: ‘DakGharNiryat Kendra’ are being established at around 800 Post Offices covering all District headquarters to promote exports of MSMEs.

International Tracked Packet Service extended to 3 more countries Mongolia, Bhutan and Sri Lanka taking the total from 12 to 15 countries.

Banking Services and Financial Inclusion:

Digital Financial empowerment of the public at large: DOP serves more than 50 crore POSB customers through 1.56 lakh post offices across length & breadth of the country and have an outstanding balance of Rs. 10,81,293 crore under Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) Schemes. The Post Office CBS system is the largest network in the world with 23,483 Post Offices already on this network. Further 1,29,151 Branch Post Offices have been also enabled to access the network on real time basis. The CBS has enabled the DOP in providing 24×7 services through ATMs, Internet & Mobile Banking.

Financial Empowerment of Rural Populace: All the 9 Small Savings Schemes of MoF are available in 1.56 lakh Post Offices. 5 Schemes, namely, Monthly Income Scheme, Senior Citizens Savings Scheme, Public Provident Fund, National Savings Certificate &KisanVikasPatrahave been introduced in BOs through SB Order 27/2020 dated 23.07.2020. People living in rural India will not be required to come to town & cities to do any Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) transaction. The same will be available at their doorstep through local Branch Post Offices.
Economic Empowerment of Girl Child: SukanyaSamriddhi Account (SSA) scheme is also known as girl child prosperity scheme and was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji on 22^nd January, 2015 in Panipat, Haryana. SSA scheme ensures a bright future for girl children. This scheme has facilitated them in proper education, marriage expenses and securing their future. The SukanyaSamriddhi Account can be opened in any post office. A total of 1.83 CroreSukanyaSamriddhi Accounts have been opened with deposits amounting to Rs. 58,822.62 Crore, by the Department of Posts, till November, 2020 since introduction of the scheme.

Insurance and Pension coverage of masses at reasonable rates: The PM Jan Suraksha Schemes, namely, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha BimaYojana (PMSBY), Pradhan MantriJeewanJyotiBimaYojana (PMJJBY) & Atal Pension Yojana (APY) were launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister in May, 2015. The DOP has been playing an active role under these Government of India flagship schemes and had made 3.2 Lakh Atal Pension Yojana (APY), 5.9 Lakh Pradhan MantriJeevanJyotiBimaYojana (PMJJBY) and 1.17 crore PradhanMantri Suraksha BimaYojana (PMSBY) enrolments so far.
Simplified processing of deceased claim cases to expedite deceased claim settlement process and help claimants to get the claim amount expeditiously.
Post Bank of India:More than 1.36 Lakhs Access Points enables for India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) transactions thus creating largest single bank network across the country. More than 2.90 Lakhs GraminDakSewaks (GDS) and Postmen enables to act as Doorstep Banking Service Providers taking Banking services to the doorstep. More than 3.61 crore people benefitted from Aadhar enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions involving an amount of Rs.7,667 crore, majority of them during COVID-19 lockdown.
Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT):More than 3.99 crores transactions were performed involving an amount of Rs. 4,040crore for a period from January, 2020 to November, 2020. Disbursed benefits of more than 275 schemes of different Ministries to beneficiaries including those in remote and rural areas.
Digital Inclusion: 1,29,159 Branch Post offices are using SIM based handheld POS devices. 40 crore digital transactions have been facilitated through promotion of Remotely Managed Franking Machines for a period from January, 2020 to November, 2020.

Postal Life Insurance (PLI)/Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI):

Bonus of PLI for the financial years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 have been declared in the month of March, 2020. Similarly, Bonus of RPLI for the financial years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 have been declared in the month of April, 2020.
A total of 26,54,652 transactions were done in respect of PLI/RPLI amounting to Rs. 5,15,14,03,966/- in the month of April, 2020, inspite of nation-wide lockdown and extension of premium payment period to June, 2020.
Since, April, 2020, there has been 48% increase in monthly PLI/RPLI online transactions.

Inspite of lockdown and severe restrictions on transportation and staff attendance in offices, more than 90% of Central Processing Centres (CPCs) across the country were functional, more than 70,000 new proposals were processed and more than 40,000 claims were sanctioned in the month of April, 2020.
Wirecard, the then existing payment gateway has been replaced by PayU for online premia payment, offering multiple channel of payment by customers, namely Debit Card, Credit Card, Net Banking, Wallets and UPI.
To simplify the process of acceptance of new proposals and facilitate settlement of claims within citizen charter’ norms, approver limits for acceptance of new proposals and settlements of claims have been revised and has been decentralized to Head Post Office/GPO/Divisional Level (except for early death claims involving inquiry, for which approving authority is Director). Accordingly, Rules 55, 55(1), 55(2), 58(1) and 59(2) of PLI (Postal Life Insurance) Rules, 2011 were amended.
The process of settlement of Death Claim, Maturity Claim and handing of Loan requests in PLI/RPLI has been simplified by prescribing Comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) for each.
To facilitate faster processing of death claim cases, Rule 39 of PLI (Postal Life Insurance) Rules, 2011 has been amended keeping in line with the existing Industry practice.

A new version of DARPAN-PLI App has been deployed in Core Integration System (CIS) with facility of processing various financial and non-financial requests of PLI/RPLI insurants at level of 127115 Branch Post Officesincluding those in remote and rural areas.
Department has brought in more transparency in communication with customer by adding more SMSs relating to policy servicing.

Department has removed 2 revival restrictions during the policy contract. Along with this,provision for revival of policy in instalments has been provisioned in the PLI system.
Business Performance of PLI and RPLI:As on 30-11-2020, there were a total of 96.79 lakh active PLI and RPLI policies with an aggregate sum assured of Rs. 2.05 lakh crores.
Investment Functions of PLI / RPLI Fund:The total corpus of PLI / RPLI fund has reached Rs 1.13 lakh crore by 30-11-2020.

Bima Gram Yojana:From January, 2020 to November, 2020, 17,092 villages brought under the coverage of Bima Gram Yojana (BGY). Each BGY village has at least 100 households covered by one RPLI policy.

Citizen Centric Services:

Post Office Passport SevaKendras (PoPSK): With the growing need of its citizens for a passport for various purposes, Ministry of External Affairs and Department of Posts mutually agreed for setting up Post Office Passport SevaKendras (PoPSKs) in post offices to utilise the post office infrastructure and reach for delivering passport services. 426PoPSKs have been made operational till date, of which 02 PoPSKs opened in 2020 namely (i) Seoni, Madhya Pradesh and (ii) Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Island. 7,27,329applications have been processed through PoPSKsfrom January, 2020 to November, 2020.
Aadhar Enrolment and Updation Centres: The facility has brought convenience to the citizens by way of generating new Aadhaar and updating their Aadhaar cards in case of any change/mis-match. More than 42,000 Postal Officials/MTS/GDS have been trained/certified to perform Aadhaar operations. The Aadhaar Enrolments are done free of cost. A sum of Rs. 100/- is reimbursed by UIDAI for every successful Aadhaar Enrolment to India Post. AadhaarUpdations are chargeable and a sum of Rs. 50/- is collected from the citizens for every demographic updation and Rs. 100/- is collected from the citizens for every biometric updation.13,352 Post Office Aadhaar Centres have been set up across the country. 99,25,630requests for enrollments / updationshave been processed by these Centres from January, 2020 to November, 2020.
A total no of 3,43,296 Gangajal Bottles have been supplied for the period from January, 2020 to November, 2020.
Digital Advancement of Rural Post Offices for a New India (DARPAN): Carried out 17.41 crores online Postal and financial transactions involving Rs. 23,251/- crores for a period from January, 2020 to November, 2020 through 1.29 lakh Branch Post Offices in the rural areas of the country.More than 1.5 crores transactions per month are taking place through DARPAN devices.
PO-CSC (Post Office-Common Service Centres):A convergence of Post Offices and Common Service Centres (Part of CSC e-Governance Services India Limited under Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology) for effective delivery of various citizen centric services is a part of the five-year Vision Document of the Department of Posts. Accordingly,10136 Post Offices are now providing services of Common Service Centres through the Digital Sewa portal of CSC. As on 30.11.2020, 48234 transactions worth Rs. 4.62 Crore were delivered through these Post Offices.

There are 100+ CSC Services which are offered through these post officeswhich include Government to Citizen Schemes(G2C) such as Pradhan Manthri Street Vendors’ AthmanirbharNidhiYojana (PMSVANIDHI), Pradhan Manthri Jan ArogyaYojana (Ayushman Bharat), Pradhan ManthriShram Yogi Maan-dhanYojana (PM-SYM), Pradhan MantriLaghuVyapari Maan-dhanYojana (PM-LVM), The Election Card Printing, E-Stamp Service, and Various e-District Services. Some of B2C (Business to Citizens) Services offered includes Bharat Bill Payment System Bills (Electric, Gas, Water bills etc…), Renewal Premium collection for Life Insurance Policies and General Insurance such as Motor Vehicle, Health and Fire Insurance etc, Third party services such as EMI collections for various loans offered by financial institutions and submission of online application forms for loans and Travel services such as Ticket booking service is available for Flight, Train and Bus Tickets.

Opening of new Branch Post Offices (BOs) in 90 identified Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts in the country:In pursuance of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Note for Cabinet Committee on Security(CCS), a proposal for opening of 4903 new Branch Post Offices (BOs) in 90 identified LWE districts in the country was under taken. In the first Phase, 1789 Branch Post Offices in Panchayats not having post offices opened in LWE districtsacross the country, of which 16 Branch Post Offices have been opened from January, 2020 to November, 2020.

Public Grievances:

Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS):Department of Posts processes complaints registered by consumers of postal servicesin the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS). Streamlining of CPGRAMS was done by mapping over 1.55 lakh Post Offices till the levelof Branch Post Offices by intuitive navigation of complaints to the line-end offices for fasterresolution. This was done in collaboration with Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) and the new version 7.0was successfully launched in September 2019. Department of Posts is the only Departmentselected for the pilot study for the revamping by DARPG. The details of the complaintshandled in 2020 upto 30.11.2020 are as under: –

S. No.

Year

Complaints received during the period

Complaints settled during the period

% of settlement

Average disposal time (days)

01.01.2020 to

30.11.2020

57604

56935

98.8%

Social Media Cell:Social media Cell is an independent entity and deals with the Twitter and Facebookaccounts of the Department of Posts. The social media cell monitors the complaints sent to all the Circles on daily basis. The averagefirst response time is approximately 4 hours. The details of the complaints handled in 2020upto 30.11.2020 are as under: –