India Post to send SMS to customers on parcels delivery status

Come September and customers will receive messages on their mobile phones from India Post informing them about status of mails, parcels, money orders and other deliveries.

Besides, the postal department has also decided to start tracking their postmen with help of GPS enabled handheld devices by October. This will help locate the postmen visiting the addresses given to them to deliver parcels and registered posts in Delhi under a pilot project.

"From September, we will send SMS to people informing them about arrival of parcel at nearest centre and time period when it will be delivered," India Post Chief Postmaster General for Delhi, Vasumitra, told reporters while sharing details of activities performed during the Digital India week.

He said the Department of Posts (DoP) is procuring 1.3 lakh GPS enabled handheld devices for rural areas which will facilitate almost all kind of services delivered through post offices like issuing of receipt for mail or parcel bookings, acknowledge of deliveries, delivery of money orders.

"There is a provision of 15,000 handheld devices separately for major cities. We are in process of procuring 1,000 additional devices for pilot project in Delhi which will show us time when postmen visited various addresses. It should be in place within three months," Vasumitra said.

The DoP has plans to provide 1,30,000 rural post offices with handheld devices.

Vasumitra said that new services specially e-commerce business has increased revenue for post offices and the company is further going to enhance services for this segment.

"Last year, we earned a revenue of Rs 48 crore from e-commerce business and this year we are planning to achieve over Rs 100 crore from Delhi circle alone. We are also mulling entry into reverse logistics but there has been no concrete decision on it yet," Vasumitra added.

He said that postal department already provides return services of items that failed to get delivered as it is usual practice.

E-commerce currently facilitates free of cost pick up of items from customer if he wants to return it due to some fault or any other discrepancy in the product. India Post is also mulling to tap this opportunity as well.

Talking about banking project, India Post Director for Postal Services in Delhi, Abhishek Singh, said, "13 ATMs are operational and 13 are in pipeline which should be in place by October."

The DoP has plans to install 1,000 ATMs across country in this financial year and total of 3,000 ATMs under current five year plan which ends in March 2017.