KEY NOTE ADDRESS MADE BY SRI P.K.GOPINATH ,MEMBER (PERSONNEL) POSTAL SERVICES BOARD ,NEW DELHI AS CHIEF GUEST IN THE ALL INDIA SEMINAR ORGANIZED BY NFPE AT THEKKADY(KERALA) ON 14..2..2011

FUTURE OF THE INDIA POST-CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Dear Colleagues,

As you are aware, Department of Posts has embarked upon the ambitious IT Modernisation Programme- 'India Post 2012'with an objective of transforming the Department into a "Technology Enabled" Self Reliant Market Leader" The Programme envisages computerization and net working of all post offices across the country to facilitate prompt and increased service delivery levels.

For the last 150 years, India Post has been the backbone of India's communication and core of the country's socio-economic development, Significant trends such as liberalization and globalisation, urbarnisation, increased demand for financial services , increased funding by government for weaker sections and rural sector, now require India Post to develop new processes and supporting technology.

The Department, at the present juncture, also faces the twin challenges posed by increasing competition and continuing advances in communication technology, especially mobile technology and the World Wide Web. In order to equip itself with modern technology, providing best in class service delivery to customers, identification of new services and business areas and improving operational efficiency, India Post intends to engage in an end to end India Post 2012 project..

The Department has undertaken computerization of Post Offices under two phases in the current plan. Under the 1st Phase approval of Government was obtained in February, 2009 for computerization and networking of all post offices up to double handed level, up gradation of hardware in the post office which were supplied with computers in the 9th Plan, computerization of the administrative officers, setting up of project management unit for managing the IT project etc. So far more than 16000 Post Offices are computerized and provided with connectivity.

Under Phase-II of computerization, the need was felt to create comprehensive solutions for all products and solutions and to create IT infrastructure. The project "INDIA POST 2012' also envisages computerization of all the non-computerized Post Office in the country including GDS Post Offices phased over the financial years 2010-11,2011-12 and 2012-13.


The project has the following components:

● It will establish IT infrastructure of Data Centre and Disaster Recovery Centre and networking of all Post Offices including Branch Posts Offices in the rural area..
● The project envisages development of integrated modular scalable applications for mail, banking, postal life insurance and solutions for accounts and HR operations of the Department.
● The rural post offices will be provided with rural ICT devices with required applications for performing postal, banking, insurance, retail operations can connect to the central server in
on line/offline mode.
● Provision for training , changes management, capacity building of the employees of the department along with setting up of the Project Management Units at Department, Circle, Region and Division levels for smooth and timely implementation of the project.

Project management and implementation follows a 4-tier structure:

● Department Level PMU
● Circle Level PMU(22)
● Region Level PMU(37)
● Division Level PMU(511) (Including RMS Divisions)

The RFPs are under process to select the vendors who will help the Department in development of the software and establishing the IT infrastructure .All single handed Pos are proposed to be computerized this year.

This programme will deliver benefits across multiple dimensions like:

100% of our post offices will be computerized or connected

There will be a radical increase in access to financial protection in rural in rural area (e.g. Rural post life insurance).

There will be a significant enhancement in revenue growth.
Multitude of products will be improved and new products will be launched (e.g.egovernace, Rural ICT)
The rural customer experience shall be re-engineered.
Our service delivery levels will increase substantially.

This programme will benefit the employees of India Post in various ways too:

Employees will have an opportunity to learn, build and enhance new skills and expertise.

There will be a reduction in manual and enhanced productively level.

Employees will be able to deliver enhanced IT enabled services to their customers leading to a significant reduction in customer complaints.

This programme will help in improving employees engagement and empowerment.

Will give the employees and opportunity to work in an innovation based culture.

Lastly but not the least India Post employees will be proud to be part of a growing and vibrant organization.

As you are aware, India Post has a large employee base, spread across the country. The changes will impact all operational units of the network, in a number of operations and administrative units with new management system. The Circles, Regions, Divisions and Post Offices will be dealing with implementation of multiple solutions. Major and medium size post offices will be implementing a number of solutions. The accounting and administrative units will be involved in new management systems. The change leadership has to be very high across organization and levels to handle these multiple changessimpacting almost allmajor cadre of the organization. Therefore, it will be necessary to engage employees from all levels to induct the changes.

Following issues assume importance:

● Capacity building-Existing capacity redeployment and additional capacity building is an important component.
● The existing training infrastructure will need to be augmented to cope with the skilling and deskilling activities.
● Computer literacy at all levels will need to be ensured particularly the GDSs.
● Modernisation and Investment in Customer facing solutions will demand commutation, education and support services. In addition the customer facing workforce will need to be knowledgeable about products and should have very strong customer facing skills.
● Ongoing performance support and training.
The Department proposes to run a massive Change management plan to meet these challenges.

Your role is critical to the success of this Programme and we look forward to your fullest cooperation. We look forward to your continued support participation to make this a success.

Thank you.