Good Times for India Post with Increasing Revenue & Traffic

India Post is one of the largest public sector employers in the country employing close to 1.9 lakh people. With more than 1.5 lakh post offices, it has presence even in the remotest of places. In the last few years, the revenues of India Post have increased with increased traffic from Parcels & Speed Post.

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India Post is one of the largest public sector employers in the country employing close to 1.9 lakh people. It has presence even in the remotest of places with more than 1.5 lakh post offices. The size, which was supposed to be the achilles heel of the postal department might well become its biggest strength, thanks to the e-commerce boom and welfare payments through banks and post offices.

Continuous Growth in Revenues

The revenue of India Post has been on the rise for the past few years. Its revenue increased from 9366.6 crore in 2012-13 to 10730.4 crore in 2013-14. In 2014-15, it further increased to 11635.98 crore. This indicates a 14.6% growth in 2013-14 and 8.4% in 2014-15.

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Speed Post & Parcels lead the way

Two of India Post’s major services are leading this revival. Revenues from both Speed Post and Parcels are increasing over the past few years.

The revenue from Parcels increased from 78.87 crore in 2012-13 to 112.47 crore in 2014-15, an increase by more than 40%. The trend is continuing in 2015-16 with the revenues touching 107.9 crore in just the first nine months.

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Revenue from Speed post has also continuously increased in the last few years. From 1372.21 crore in 2013-14, the revenue increased to 1495.21 crore in 2014-15. In the first nine months of 2015-16, the revenue has already touched 1146.99 crore. The speed post traffic also increased from 36.99 crore in 2013-14 to 39.87 crore in 2014-15.

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More Parcel centres to cater to the e-commerce demand

48 dedicated Parcel centres have been established in 2014-15 and another 9 have been established in 2015-16 to meet the growing demand. The department is said to be laying special emphasis on the Parcel segment through up gradation of infrastructure, improvements in the delivery system and revamping parcel transmission modes and routes. The following measures are being taken to improve the delivery system.

India Post is developing its Road Transport Network for fast and secure transmission of parcels on identified routes. 11 major routes have been started in 2015-16.
India Post has introduced Mechanized Nodal Delivery of parcels from identified delivery centres in 12 cities. Delivery on same day has also been introduced in 11 cities in select areas.
Delivery in extended office hours is being done in 3 cities in identified Post Offices and delivery on public holidays is underway in 6 cities, on pilot basis
Key Performance Indicators & Quality Monitoring Cells have been set up for tracking the performance of Speed Post and Registered articles.
GPS devices have been installed in mail vans and other security measures have been improved.

The growth is also evident from the fact that Rs. 970 Crore Cash On Delivery (CoD) collections were done by India Post in just the first eight months of 2015-16.

CAG finds Speed Post better than private Couriers

The CAG report for the year 2012-13 highlighted that Speed Post is far better than private couriers, in terms of reach, assured delivery and delivery time.

In order to compare the performance/quality of Speed Post with Private Courier Agencies, a test check was conducted by CAG in eight circles. The test check was conducted by posting letters to local, major cities and Tehsils (blocks). A total of 284 test letters were posted by speed post and 287 by different private courier service providers like DTDC, First Flight, Blue Dart/DHL and Local couriers.

98.94% of the letters posted by speed post were delivered to the addressee while only 90.24% letters posted by the private couriers were delivered. In fact at the block level, 100% letters by speed post reached the addressee while only 83.54% letters by courier reached the addressee. This proved the inherent strength of India Post in reaching the remote areas of the country.

Vacancies & Complaints remain a threat

Vacancies and complaints are two things that India Post has to resolve to keep the momentum going. There are more than 13000 vacancies in post offices in different parts of the country as of December, 2015. The most affected is Delhi with more than 20% vacancies.

With increased traffic, India Post is also witnessing increased number of complaints about delay in delivery of articles. The number of such complaints for registered letters increased from 70 odd thousand in 2012-13 to more than 80000 in 2014-15. Similarly, the number of complaints in parcels increased from around 23000 in 2012-13 to about 32000 in 2014-15. The complaints in speed post also increased from around 59500 in 2012-13 to more than 1.08 lakh in 2014-15.

Featured Image: [By Harikrishnank123], [CC BY 3.0]