In a post-COVID-19 world, India Post turns a saviour

Hailing an unlikely institution that is delivering money, medicines and more during the lockdown

At Rustomjee Urbania, we live close to the Thane Head Post Office (HPO). Not too many residents of Urbania go to the Thane HPO but some times do, if they are not at home during delivery of a registered letter. I have been going to the Thane HPO over the past four years mainly to collect registered letters addressed to me. On the first floor, that post office has a section where you wait in line to show the paper slip left behind instead of your letter, as you were not home when an India Post employee visited your place. You receive your letter by showing your ID and write your mobile phone number on a register.

Your experience at the Thane HPO makes you wonder how a government service continues to function through a mix of technology and paper. Although the tracking of registered mail is through barcodes, you sign off a register acknowledging receipt of your package.

I have also been to Thane HPO to send a registered parcel and documents by Speed Post in the past three months. I was to receive a parcel posted in the third week of March 2020, but that package has become victim to the lockdown.

This week's story is about how India Post is helping the country through its network even when the entire transport network is down due to a countrywide forty-day lockdown beginning March 25, 2020.

India Post had to manage its operations in the absence of most modes of transport including bus, truck, train and flights. India Post ingeniously adapted itself to handle the lack of transportation by itself becoming a transporter, in the words of one of its officials.

The red India Post vans you might have seen on roads became the department's mainstay during the lockdown with the cargo planes of private companies being used to haul material by air between big cities. Private vehicles hired by India Post supplemented the India Post vans.

The last mile connectivity was of course through the foot soldiers of India Post, its vast army of postmen and postwomen totalling more than four lakh. As postal service has turned out to be a lifesaver, postmen and postwomen have been ensuring deliveries regardless of time or day of the week. Midnight deliveries and handovers on Sundays have been frequent during India's forty-day lockdown.

Miraculously, the India Post team has functioned with just sixty per cent of its staff at work as the smaller post offices are closed. The post offices open currently continue to accept mail articles but with a disclaimer that delivery period is uncertain as the priority is for essential and critical materials related to COVID-19 pandemic.

India Post's nearly one and a half lakh post offices became logistics hubs in the total absence of deliveries by app-based services. India Post is making the shipments of medications to customers of online pharmacies during the lockdown. India Post is managing to ensure super-quick delivery of medical equipment and testing kits for COVID-19 treatment by maintaining a cold chain. The number of articles handled by India Post even in lockdown are staggering. With no means of transport, India Post delivered 32 lakh articles by mail and enabled the transfer of through 17 lakh money orders during four weeks of national lockdown in India.

Apart from its role as a logistics service provider, India Post has also functioned as a bank during COVID-19 pandemic in India. India Post has deployed a thousand ATM's to facilitate cash withdrawal.

Its ATM network has been supplemented by Grameen dak sewaks who have micro-ATMs serving Indians in remotest villages. A micro-ATM is an Aadhar enabled Point of Sale system through which a customer can receive money from India Post.

India Post allowed cash withdrawals, account opening, transfer of direct benefits and pension payments at the doorsteps of aged, disabled and disadvantaged beneficiaries through an innovative technology called Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS).

Such doorstep service was offered to 13 lakh beneficiaries who received two hundred and sixty crore rupees in payment.

India Post's AePS continue to operate daily during the lockdown and are serving one lakh beneficiaries each day.

India Post also has Post Office Savings Bank in which 1.7 crores transactions during four weeks of the lockdown saw the transfer of twenty-three thousand crore rupees. India Post also runs a Payments Bank which saw transactions amounting to two thousand crore rupees in a month.

There could not be a better time to appreciate India Post than during the forty-day countrywide lockdown from March 25, 2020, to May 3 2020. When delivery apps have all been unable to function, India Post has risen to the occasion and helped citizens receive pensions and financial benefits, delivered medical equipment and medication and even helped farmers supply mangoes. As mentioned by one of its officials, India Post became more compassionate and people-centric during the COVID-19 lockdown.

It is likely that shortly, we might see a re-energised India Post that delivers articles even for e-commerce players and a range of other sellers, who can use its vast nation-wide network to reach customers across India. India Post is also likely to become stronger as a financial services player by using its customer reach to market insurance and savings in rural India. Possibly, the COVID-19 pandemic will act as an energiser and booster to India Post whose primary offering, mail, is threatened by technology.

At Urbania, we live less than two kilometres away from the Thane GPO. After the lockdown, do plan a visit to the Thane HPO to show your children how a post office functions. And while there, do thank the staff at the post office as they were one of the essential critical services that kept the country functional despite a lockdown.