The Department of Posts, one of the country’s oldest organisations, is going in for an ambitious modernisation drive.
Killi Kruparani, Union Minister of State for Communications and IT, said the department was investing Rs 1,500 crore in a phased manner for on-line connectivity for all its post offices.
“We are aiming at connecting all our 1.52 lakh post offices to a single network. We will also be installing 1,000 ATMs as part of this modernisation drive,” she told media persons on the sidelines of a visit to the site for setting up an automated mail processing centre on the outskirts of the city.
The Minister said postmen in urban areas would also be provided with hand-held devices for updating status of the mails for delivery.
Kruparani said the department had been entrusted with the task of providing aadhaar-enabled services. “For this, Chittoor district (in Andhra Pradesh) has been selected for implementation of a pilot project. This will be inaugurated shortly,” she said.
The department is setting up its third automated mail processing centre in Hyderabad.
The Rs 60-crore centre coming up in Hyderabad, which is expected to speed up processing mail with greater accuracy for speedy delivery of letters, will have two machines — one for letter sorting and another for sorting large-size articles.
The letter sorting machine has a capacity of sorting 35,000 letters per hour, while the mixed mail sorting machine can handle 20,000 articles per hour. In Andhra Pradesh circle, some 20 lakh mails are handled daily, with 8.2 lakhs in Hyderabad city alone. Pan-India, the department delivers 1.75 crore mails and 2.75 lakh parcels every day.