Postal savings at Rs 3.75 lakh crore in FY05

With over 14 crore bank accounts,  the Department of Post's (DoP) saving scheme is one of the popular instruments with the amount in these accounts standing at a whopping Rs 3.75 lakh crore for 2004-05, making it an enviable parallel banking structure.

Not just that, the department's 24 lakh postal life insurance policies fetched an assured sum of Rs 3,830.64 crore in FY05 and the rural postal life insurance scheme with its over 37 lakh policyholders generating an assured sum of Rs 7,207.96 crore, according to data released by IndiaPost's business development and marketing directorate.

IndiaPost's revenue for 2004-05 stood at Rs 4,582.18 crore with expenditure running higher at Rs 5,964.05 crore. This leaves a deficit of about Rs 1,400 crore.

DoP says revenue from its premier products of IndiaPost has been growing steadily and in 2004-05, this amount touched Rs 953.31 crore accounting for over one-fifth of the total revenue of DoP.