Posting Benefits: State and Future of India Post
Did you know that India has the world’s largest postal network with over 1,54,939 Post Office across the country ?
India Post operates 1,39,222 post offices in the rural areas and 15,717 in the urban areas. Out of the total Post Offices, 1,29,379 are Gramin Dak Sewak Post Offices while 25,560 are Departmental Post Offices. The Department of Posts employs nearly 4,60,457 employees, which includes 2,61,162 Gramin Dak Sewaks. A post office is available for every 8354 citizens which makes the postal departments much larger than any single central government agency. In spite of heavy competition from private courier companies, India Post retains almost 1/5th of the postal delivery market.
In spite of operating in a competitive ecosystem, India Post has managed to grow some of its business segments through innovation in product design and new product offerings. The Business Parcel segment has shown incredible growth (253% YoY) due to new tie-ups with e-commerce companies and logistics handling. In terms of volume, India Post still carries about 602 Crore articles annually and aslo provides last-mile delivery for major financial and social schemes.
India Posts acquired a in-principle approval for establishing a payment bank and the India Post Payment Bank was incorporated in August 2016. The IPPB is expected to roll out its operations by September 2016. While the bank is expected to operate about 650 branches in the first year, the extension through the immense network of Gramin Dak Sewaks would make IPPB the bank with the maximum reach in the first year itself. India Post has the highest number of branches than each group of based on ownership. It also has a higher number of branches than the cumulative total of all bank branches.