[Kissntell]

The humble post office is all set to undergo a radical change with a proposal to convert over 1.5 lakh post offices across the nation into full fledged banks.

The telecom minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, wants to reach out to the masses in the rural areas with modern banking facilities through the post offices.

“We want to commercialise the department. We will seek a licence from the RBI to convert all our post offices into banks,“ Mr Sibal said.

The lack of modern banking facilities in rural areas and dependence of villagers on informal sector for their credit requirements has prompted the government to work on financial inclusion by way of setting up `postal banks'.

“The State Bank of India can't build branches all over India, but there are post offices across India. The branches are already there, so infrastructure expendi ture is not required. So you can actually give banking facilities at relatively lower costs, which would be extremely beneficial to people,” he said.

The post offices currently offer financial services like savings bank, postal life insurance, pension payments and money transfer services. Its corpus stood at `5,82,832.9 crore.

DoP’s revenues grew 11 per cent to ` 6,954.09 crore in 2010-2011 from `6,266.70 crore in the previous fiscal. However, negative growth rate in some circles has pushed the department’s deficit to `6,625 crore in FY’11, almost equal to the annual revenue of the department.

“I want to make the (postal) system commercialised. By corporatising over 1.5 lakh post offices across the country, the ministry is expecting to improve the quality of services, increase profitability and reduce prices,” he said.

Out of the 22 DoP circles, some circles like Chhattisgarh have reported a negative growth of 19 per cent, Jharkhand 18 per cent and North East 15.9 per cent, whereas Assam (23.7 per cent), Haryana (19.5 per cent), Karnataka (13.5 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (13.9 per cent), recorded positive growth.

Among other steps, the minister has asked members of Postal Services Board to ensure 20 per cent growth.

Each member of the PSB has been asked to identify, commercialise and operationalise five major schemes and partner with 5 PSUs and 10 corporate houses for commercial tieups with India Post with revenue potential of at least ` 50 crore each.

— PTI

[theonsushv]

Dear Forum mates,

The remote village residents' need for banking facility will be very much catered . if this Post office banks idea is implemented. Great social thinking.

The humble post office is all set to undergo a radical change with a proposal to convert over 1.5 lakh post offices across the nation into full fledged banks.

The telecom minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, wants to reach out to the masses in the rural areas with modern banking facilities through the post offices.

“We want to commercialise the department. We will seek a licence from the RBI to convert all our post offices into banks,“ Mr Sibal said.

The lack of modern banking facilities in rural areas and dependence of villagers on informal sector for their credit requirements has prompted the government to work on financial inclusion by way of setting up `postal banks'.

“The State Bank of India can't build branches all over India, but there are post offices across India. The branches are already there, so infrastructure expendi ture is not required. So you can actually give banking facilities at relatively lower costs, which would be extremely beneficial to people,” he said.

The post offices currently offer financial services like savings bank, postal life insurance, pension payments and money transfer services. Its corpus stood at `5,82,832.9 crore.

DoP’s revenues grew 11 per cent to ` 6,954.09 crore in 2010-2011 from `6,266.70 crore in the previous fiscal. However, negative growth rate in some circles has pushed the department’s deficit to `6,625 crore in FY’11, almost equal to the annual revenue of the department.

“I want to make the (postal) system commercialised. By corporatising over 1.5 lakh post offices across the country, the ministry is expecting to improve the quality of services, increase profitability and reduce prices,” he said.

Out of the 22 DoP circles, some circles like Chhattisgarh have reported a negative growth of 19 per cent, Jharkhand 18 per cent and North East 15.9 per cent, whereas Assam (23.7 per cent), Haryana (19.5 per cent), Karnataka (13.5 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (13.9 per cent), recorded positive growth.

Among other steps, the minister has asked members of Postal Services Board to ensure 20 per cent growth.

Each member of the PSB has been asked to identify, commercialise and operationalise five major schemes and partner with 5 PSUs and 10 corporate houses for commercial tieups with India Post with revenue potential of at least ` 50 crore each.

— PTI

[Keeriewof]

Hi Praveen Sir,

Here is the complete message. You have left out the last part of the Story.

Rajpriya

http://expressbuzz.com/finance/sibal...ks/299645.html