Payments bank licence imminent for India Post
If approved, it will be consistent with PM’s plan to use post offices to deliver financial services to remote areas
India Post has 155,015 post offices across the country, of which 139,144 are in rural areas. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint
New Delhi: The grant of a payments bank licence to the India Post is imminent, according to a senior finance ministry official who did not wish to be identified.
If approved, it will be consistent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to utilize the existing network of post offices to deliver, in addition to the existing bouquet of postal services, financial services to the remotest parts of the country through digital connectivity and innovations.
India Post has 155,015 post offices across the country, of which 139,144 are in rural areas.
To give a fillip to these existing branches, the department of posts has tied up with e-commerce firms such as Snapdeal and Amazon to deliver parcels—parcel revenue for fiscal year 2014-15 rose 37% compared to a decline of 2% in financial year 2013-14, as reported by the Press Trust of India on 12 July.
“India Post will most likely get payments bank licence as they have a good case,” said the finance ministry official.
On 9 July, communications and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is expected to grant payments bank licence for the operation of Post Bank of India.
The finance ministry official cited earlier also said that post offices as payments banks may also be allowed to accept transactions for others who may be awarded payments bank licences.
The committee on payments banks headed by Nachiket Mor submitted its report last week and the licences are expected to be awarded by the end of August. However, the number of licences that will be issued is still not known.
Mor declined to comment, saying that as the head of the committee he cannot disclose details.
A payments bank can take deposits, allow remittances and offer simple financial products, but will not be allowed to lend. It will have to invest 75% of its funds in government securities and the minimum capital required to set up a payments bank is set at Rs.100 crore.
The central bank, in November, had invited applications for payments bank and small finance bank licences.
In total, 41 applications were received by RBI for payments bank licences, including from Reliance Industries Ltd, Tech Mahindra Ltd, Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd and Airtel M Commerce Services Ltd, among others.
Shailendra Kumar Dwivedi, director, Post Bank of India, India Post, said that he cannot confirm the development and that he can only talk after the licence is awarded.
“Like everybody else, the minister (Prasad) must have also heard it from some quarters. But given the credentials and readiness of the postal department, it must get the licence,” he said, adding that right now, it is uncertain.
However, Dwivedi added that the department has started the process of engaging with consultants who will help implement and set up the bank as it anticipates the licence.
A representative of a consulting firm with which the department is in talks confirmed that the department is preparing to ensure a quick roll-out once the licence is granted.
The consultant declined to be identified because the firm has signed a client confidentiality clause.
“Since the basic idea is to cover the unserved or underserved to make them included, it should be somebody who has a large distribution network, reach, infrastructure and has prior experience is similar business (financial services), maybe someone like India Post or microfinance institutions,” the consultant said.
India Post already offers financial services under the heads of post office savings scheme, postal life insurance, money remittance service, mutual funds and forex services.
Source : http://www.livemint.com/
If approved, it will be consistent with PM’s plan to use post offices to deliver financial services to remote areas
India Post has 155,015 post offices across the country, of which 139,144 are in rural areas. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint
New Delhi: The grant of a payments bank licence to the India Post is imminent, according to a senior finance ministry official who did not wish to be identified.
If approved, it will be consistent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to utilize the existing network of post offices to deliver, in addition to the existing bouquet of postal services, financial services to the remotest parts of the country through digital connectivity and innovations.
India Post has 155,015 post offices across the country, of which 139,144 are in rural areas.
To give a fillip to these existing branches, the department of posts has tied up with e-commerce firms such as Snapdeal and Amazon to deliver parcels—parcel revenue for fiscal year 2014-15 rose 37% compared to a decline of 2% in financial year 2013-14, as reported by the Press Trust of India on 12 July.
“India Post will most likely get payments bank licence as they have a good case,” said the finance ministry official.
On 9 July, communications and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is expected to grant payments bank licence for the operation of Post Bank of India.
The finance ministry official cited earlier also said that post offices as payments banks may also be allowed to accept transactions for others who may be awarded payments bank licences.
The committee on payments banks headed by Nachiket Mor submitted its report last week and the licences are expected to be awarded by the end of August. However, the number of licences that will be issued is still not known.
Mor declined to comment, saying that as the head of the committee he cannot disclose details.
A payments bank can take deposits, allow remittances and offer simple financial products, but will not be allowed to lend. It will have to invest 75% of its funds in government securities and the minimum capital required to set up a payments bank is set at Rs.100 crore.
The central bank, in November, had invited applications for payments bank and small finance bank licences.
In total, 41 applications were received by RBI for payments bank licences, including from Reliance Industries Ltd, Tech Mahindra Ltd, Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd and Airtel M Commerce Services Ltd, among others.
Shailendra Kumar Dwivedi, director, Post Bank of India, India Post, said that he cannot confirm the development and that he can only talk after the licence is awarded.
“Like everybody else, the minister (Prasad) must have also heard it from some quarters. But given the credentials and readiness of the postal department, it must get the licence,” he said, adding that right now, it is uncertain.
However, Dwivedi added that the department has started the process of engaging with consultants who will help implement and set up the bank as it anticipates the licence.
A representative of a consulting firm with which the department is in talks confirmed that the department is preparing to ensure a quick roll-out once the licence is granted.
The consultant declined to be identified because the firm has signed a client confidentiality clause.
“Since the basic idea is to cover the unserved or underserved to make them included, it should be somebody who has a large distribution network, reach, infrastructure and has prior experience is similar business (financial services), maybe someone like India Post or microfinance institutions,” the consultant said.
India Post already offers financial services under the heads of post office savings scheme, postal life insurance, money remittance service, mutual funds and forex services.
Source : http://www.livemint.com/
Post offices should issue passports in India
Why can't the loss making post offices of India start issuing passports in the country? Getting a passport in India is a tough job indeed, even though it has gone online.
Almost 22 crore people in Uttar Pradesh live and work under the rule of the Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party or the Mayawatis of the Bahujan Samaj Party. In this state there are only three passport offices, one in Lucknow the state capital, the other in Bareilly and the third in Ghaziabad.
The external affairs ministry may say they have made the procedure simple. The application has gone online and the dalals are out of the business for applying. However there is a problem here. The multiplicity of documents required is confusing to the common man, who even after applying online for a passport from Gorakhpur or Deoria or Azamgarh, will have to tread down to Lucknow to the local seva Kendra to finalize all his details.
Here he will find, that having an Aadhar Card is not enough, as the Aadhar Card is not a proof of age. He will have to submit his High School Certificate once again, as he had done earlier to the Aadhar Card making authority. In case he has forgotten to bring it, then a trip back to Azamgarh orGorakhpur or Deoria is warranted. Now who said the procedure has become easier?
Once these documents are submitted then the applicant has to wait for a policeman to come to his house, to verify the claims and documents he has submitted to the passport office. The policeman collects several papers and takes notes and takes self attested copies of Aadhar Cards, Pan Cards and Election Id Cards and passport size photographs of the applicants. He also takes a copy of the High School Certificates of the applicants as well. So much so, for going to the passport office and applying there in the presence of an officer or appointee of the department.
This entire rigmarole can take ten to fifteen days at the end of which, a passport does arrive or is canceled, in the process a much wiser individual who has interacted with both the external affairs ministry and the home ministry and the state government, has a document that will facilitate his travel abroad, where he can holiday in Switzerland, go for Haj to Saudi Arabia or study in Australia and Canada and the United Kingdom or the USA. Life can now be lived kingsize.
In this process no one says that police harass them for money in the name of verification, and the police and the external affairs ministry are groping in the dark to find better ways and means to issue a passport, but the same passport is handed to British citizens in London by the post office within 24 hours. The same happens in former British colonies like Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore and at the most, the process takes 48 hours and if you are lucky, the travel document will be available the same evening, if you apply in the morning. All because the post office handles this work.
To get a similar process begun in India, the Ministry of External Affairs has to link up with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, which oversees the work of the IndiaPostal services. This is not a big task, but it may help in reducing the losses that the department is incurring every year. Even though Aadhar Cards and the Unique Identification Number work was given to this department, its financial loss was around Rs. 6,800 crore in 2012 alone.
The situation is unique, as despite the fact that the postal department is a losing proposition, its staff has to be given increased salaries, as they are central government employees and the Sixth Pay commission took the lid off salaries. So while their work has reduced, their pays have increased.
The government in this case can neither shut down the post offices nor can it dismiss the staff. At the same time several postal services are being discontinued or have already gone into the pages of history. The Telegraph office is now a thing of the past and was killed by the SMS and the Email.
Whatever was left was destroyed by Facebook and WhatsApp. The government employees who work in the postal department will despite all this, get a major hike in salaries when the next pay commission comes along. It would be better to generate work for them by allowing them to issue passports, as is done in several other countries.
In the old framework of things, when nations lived in isolation, it made sense to have bamboo curtains and iron curtains. Now the passport is just a travel document and easier access to passports should be possible.
However something in our procedures is lopsided. While it is easy to get a driving license even if you do not know how to drive a car properly, and could end up endangering the lives of several persons, it is tough to get a gun license, even though it is vital to have a gun for self defense in a country, where law and order is a big problem and criminals are easily accessing guns and bombs.
Similarly when economic liberalization has become the order of the day and boundaries between nations are vanishing, with the average Indian becoming an international citizen, getting a passport should be in the hands of post offices, to make things easier and justify the high salaries paid to the postal staff.
Source : http://www.merinews.com/
Why can't the loss making post offices of India start issuing passports in the country? Getting a passport in India is a tough job indeed, even though it has gone online.
Almost 22 crore people in Uttar Pradesh live and work under the rule of the Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party or the Mayawatis of the Bahujan Samaj Party. In this state there are only three passport offices, one in Lucknow the state capital, the other in Bareilly and the third in Ghaziabad.
The external affairs ministry may say they have made the procedure simple. The application has gone online and the dalals are out of the business for applying. However there is a problem here. The multiplicity of documents required is confusing to the common man, who even after applying online for a passport from Gorakhpur or Deoria or Azamgarh, will have to tread down to Lucknow to the local seva Kendra to finalize all his details.
- See more at: http://www.merinews.com/article/post-offices-should-issue-passports-in-india/15908074.shtml#sthash.1TWSImS8.dpuf
Why can't the loss making post offices of India start issuing passports in the country? Getting a passport in India is a tough job indeed, even though it has gone online.
Almost 22 crore people in Uttar Pradesh live and work under the rule of the Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party or the Mayawatis of the Bahujan Samaj Party. In this state there are only three passport offices, one in Lucknow the state capital, the other in Bareilly and the third in Ghaziabad.
The external affairs ministry may say they have made the procedure simple. The application has gone online and the dalals are out of the business for applying. However there is a problem here. The multiplicity of documents required is confusing to the common man, who even after applying online for a passport from Gorakhpur or Deoria or Azamgarh, will have to tread down to Lucknow to the local seva Kendra to finalize all his details.
- See more at: http://www.merinews.com/article/post-offices-should-issue-passports-in-india/15908074.shtml#sthash.1TWSImS8.dpuf
Why can't the loss making post offices of India start issuing passports in the country? Getting a passport in India is a tough job indeed, even though it has gone online.
Almost 22 crore people in Uttar Pradesh live and work under the rule of the Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party or the Mayawatis of the Bahujan Samaj Party. In this state there are only three passport offices, one in Lucknow the state capital, the other in Bareilly and the third in Ghaziabad.
The external affairs ministry may say they have made the procedure simple. The application has gone online and the dalals are out of the business for applying. However there is a problem here. The multiplicity of documents required is confusing to the common man, who even after applying online for a passport from Gorakhpur or Deoria or Azamgarh, will have to tread down to Lucknow to the local seva Kendra to finalize all his details.
Here he will find, that having an Aadhar Card is not enough, as the Aadhar Card is not a proof of age. He will have to submit his High School Certificate once again, as he had done earlier to the Aadhar Card making authority. In case he has forgotten to bring it, then a trip back to Azamgarh orGorakhpur or Deoria is warranted. Now who said the procedure has become easier?
Once these documents are submitted then the applicant has to wait for a policeman to come to his house, to verify the claims and documents he has submitted to the passport office. The policeman collects several papers and takes notes and takes self attested copies of Aadhar Cards, Pan Cards and Election Id Cards and passport size photographs of the applicants. He also takes a copy of the High School Certificates of the applicants as well. So much so, for going to the passport office and applying there in the presence of an officer or appointee of the department.
This entire rigmarole can take ten to fifteen days at the end of which, a passport does arrive or is canceled, in the process a much wiser individual who has interacted with both the external affairs ministry and the home ministry and the state government, has a document that will facilitate his travel abroad, where he can holiday in Switzerland, go for Haj to Saudi Arabia or study in Australia and Canada and the United Kingdom or the USA. Life can now be lived kingsize.
In this process no one says that police harass them for money in the name of verification, and the police and the external affairs ministry are groping in the dark to find better ways and means to issue a passport, but the same passport is handed to British citizens in London by the post office within 24 hours. The same happens in former British colonies like Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore and at the most, the process takes 48 hours and if you are lucky, the travel document will be available the same evening, if you apply in the morning. All because the post office handles this work.
To get a similar process begun in India, the Ministry of External Affairs has to link up with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, which oversees the work of the IndiaPostal services. This is not a big task, but it may help in reducing the losses that the department is incurring every year. Even though Aadhar Cards and the Unique Identification Number work was given to this department, its financial loss was around Rs. 6,800 crore in 2012 alone.
The situation is unique, as despite the fact that the postal department is a losing proposition, its staff has to be given increased salaries, as they are central government employees and the Sixth Pay commission took the lid off salaries. So while their work has reduced, their pays have increased.
The government in this case can neither shut down the post offices nor can it dismiss the staff. At the same time several postal services are being discontinued or have already gone into the pages of history. The Telegraph office is now a thing of the past and was killed by the SMS and the Email.
Whatever was left was destroyed by Facebook and WhatsApp. The government employees who work in the postal department will despite all this, get a major hike in salaries when the next pay commission comes along. It would be better to generate work for them by allowing them to issue passports, as is done in several other countries.
In the old framework of things, when nations lived in isolation, it made sense to have bamboo curtains and iron curtains. Now the passport is just a travel document and easier access to passports should be possible.
However something in our procedures is lopsided. While it is easy to get a driving license even if you do not know how to drive a car properly, and could end up endangering the lives of several persons, it is tough to get a gun license, even though it is vital to have a gun for self defense in a country, where law and order is a big problem and criminals are easily accessing guns and bombs.
Similarly when economic liberalization has become the order of the day and boundaries between nations are vanishing, with the average Indian becoming an international citizen, getting a passport should be in the hands of post offices, to make things easier and justify the high salaries paid to the postal staff.
Source : http://www.merinews.com/
Why can't the loss making post offices of India start issuing passports in the country? Getting a passport in India is a tough job indeed, even though it has gone online.
Almost 22 crore people in Uttar Pradesh live and work under the rule of the Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party or the Mayawatis of the Bahujan Samaj Party. In this state there are only three passport offices, one in Lucknow the state capital, the other in Bareilly and the third in Ghaziabad.
The external affairs ministry may say they have made the procedure simple. The application has gone online and the dalals are out of the business for applying. However there is a problem here. The multiplicity of documents required is confusing to the common man, who even after applying online for a passport from Gorakhpur or Deoria or Azamgarh, will have to tread down to Lucknow to the local seva Kendra to finalize all his details.
- See more at: http://www.merinews.com/article/post-offices-should-issue-passports-in-india/15908074.shtml#sthash.1TWSImS8.dpuf
Why can't the loss making post offices of India start issuing passports in the country? Getting a passport in India is a tough job indeed, even though it has gone online.
Almost 22 crore people in Uttar Pradesh live and work under the rule of the Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party or the Mayawatis of the Bahujan Samaj Party. In this state there are only three passport offices, one in Lucknow the state capital, the other in Bareilly and the third in Ghaziabad.
The external affairs ministry may say they have made the procedure simple. The application has gone online and the dalals are out of the business for applying. However there is a problem here. The multiplicity of documents required is confusing to the common man, who even after applying online for a passport from Gorakhpur or Deoria or Azamgarh, will have to tread down to Lucknow to the local seva Kendra to finalize all his details.
- See more at: http://www.merinews.com/article/post-offices-should-issue-passports-in-india/15908074.shtml#sthash.1TWSImS8.dpufPerformance bonus for govt employees yet to come into force
New Delhi: A scheme to give performance- linked incentive to central government employees is yet to be implemented, the government said on Wednesday.
The central government has accepted in principle the recommendation of the sixth pay commission for introduction of a performance-related incentive scheme in the form of pecuniary benefit over and above the regular salary, for it employees, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
Singh said the government has not implemented the scheme.
Source : PTI, Courtesy : http://zeenews.india.com
New Delhi: A scheme to give performance- linked incentive to central government employees is yet to be implemented, the government said on Wednesday.
The central government has accepted in principle the recommendation of the sixth pay commission for introduction of a performance-related incentive scheme in the form of pecuniary benefit over and above the regular salary, for it employees, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
Singh said the government has not implemented the scheme.
The central government has accepted in principle the recommendation of the sixth pay commission for introduction of a performance-related incentive scheme in the form of pecuniary benefit over and above the regular salary, for it employees, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
Singh said the government has not implemented the scheme.
Source : PTI, Courtesy : http://zeenews.india.com
Revenue receipts for Department of Posts up 25% to Rs 11,733 crore in 2014-15
Revenue receipts of the Department of Posts increased to Rs 11,733.13 crore in 2014-15, up 25 per cent from the end of March 2013, Parliament was informed today.
The receipts stood at Rs 9,366.50 crore in the financial year 2012-13.
"Owing to the Department's consistent focus on quality improvement and increasing use of technology, the revenue receipts have steadily grown from Rs 9,366.50 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 11,733.13 crore in 2014-15," Minister of Communications and Information TechnologyRavi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
Speed post, which is the flagship express mail product of the department, has also shown increase in revenue from Rs 1,261.50 crore to Rs 1,473.39 crore in the same period, he added.
DoP handles more than 600 crore mail prices every year.
"Parcel revenue has increased 37 per cent from 2013-14 to 2014-15, owing to the infrastructure improvement for parcel handling and delivery as well as focus on quality of service delivery," he added.
In response to a separate query, Prasad said so far, 2,940 post offices have been modernised under Project Arrow.
"The Department has put in place a Programme Management Governance Structure, which plays a key role in monitoring the IT Modernisation project approved by the government," he said.
Prasad said the governance structure is four-tiered with an apex inter-ministerial steering committee to review, monitor and guide the progress of the project.
The receipts stood at Rs 9,366.50 crore in the financial year 2012-13.
"Owing to the Department's consistent focus on quality improvement and increasing use of technology, the revenue receipts have steadily grown from Rs 9,366.50 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 11,733.13 crore in 2014-15," Minister of Communications and Information TechnologyRavi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
Speed post, which is the flagship express mail product of the department, has also shown increase in revenue from Rs 1,261.50 crore to Rs 1,473.39 crore in the same period, he added.
DoP handles more than 600 crore mail prices every year.
"Parcel revenue has increased 37 per cent from 2013-14 to 2014-15, owing to the infrastructure improvement for parcel handling and delivery as well as focus on quality of service delivery," he added.
In response to a separate query, Prasad said so far, 2,940 post offices have been modernised under Project Arrow.
"The Department has put in place a Programme Management Governance Structure, which plays a key role in monitoring the IT Modernisation project approved by the government," he said.
Prasad said the governance structure is four-tiered with an apex inter-ministerial steering committee to review, monitor and guide the progress of the project.
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