India Post registers massive growth through parcel deliveries

India Post registered a 37 percent growth in 2014-2015, up from a minus two percent the previous year, and has grown by a whopping 117 percent in the first half of the current fiscal, Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said here on Saturday.

Armed with a tie-up with more than 400 e-Commerce agencies like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, etc, it has potential to become the world's leading e-Commerce delivery platform, he said.

Amazon has become the largest business partner of India Post's e-Commerce Division, Prasad added, while inaugurating India Post's 12,000 square feet state-of-the-art e-Commerce Parcel Processing Centre in Parel here.

India Post notched a revenue of Rs.11,636 crore last year, with the post and parcel related services accounting for 42 percent while the rest was generated by savings bank activities, he said, adding the India Post Payment Bank would be launched by March 2017 to extend access to formal banking in rural areas.

All rural post offices would get hand-held devices to facilitate banking insurance businesses and contribution in propagating government schemes, he said.

The new processing centre is fully mechanized and computerized with conveyer belts, scanners, electronic weighing scales, etc, and has a dedicated transport facility to dispatch parcel bags to the Mumbai Airport.

Presently, around 7,000 e-Commerce parcels are being processed daily at the centre which has a capacity to handle 30,000 parcels round-the-clock.

Speedy delivery of parcels is enabled through four dedicated mechanized nodal delivery centres encompassing 21 post offices in the city, with more slated to added, with deliveries on Sundays and holidays.

Chief Postmaster General of Maharashtra-Goa Ashok K. Das, Postmaster General (PGM), Mail V.K. Gupta, PMG Business Department Rakesh Kumar, and PMG Mumbai Region Ranjit Kumar were present on the occasion.