(a) whether Government proposes to modernise over 160,000 post offices providing postal services and postal banking systems in the country;
(b) if so, the details thereof and the total number of post offices that are equipped with computerised systems;
(c) the status of post offices in the State of West Bengal and the proposal by the Government to upgrade the same; and
(d) the proposal by the Government to shift and / or relocate post offices from old and inhygenic building to new address?
MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS, EDUCATION AND
ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
(SHRI SANJAY DHOTRE)
(a) Under the IT Modernization Project, the Department of Posts have modernized the Post Offices to provide better postal services and postal banking systems in the country.
(b) The details are as under:-
i. All the 25,409 Departmental Post Offices in the country have been computerized. The Department has modernized 1,29,157 Branch Post offices by providing Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) based Handheld Point of Sale devices for carrying out online Postal Services and Postal Banking financial transactions under Digital Advancement of Rural Post Office for A New India (DARPAN) Project.
ii. The project includes providing Central Server based integrated, modular and scalable solution for all the operations of Department of Posts including Mails, Human Resource, Banking, Insurance and Finance and Accounts. It also involves creation of IT Infrastructure like Data Centre, Disaster Recovery Centre, setting up of a Wide Area Network (WAN) and providing solar powered and portable hand-held computing devices (Micro ATM compliant) to all the Branch Post Offices.
iii. As on 31.01.2021, 23464 Post Offices are providing Core Banking Services (CBS) to the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) customers enabling them to transact their POSB accounts from any post office across the country.
iv. 1000 ATMs have been installed, with at least one in each District Headquarters. These ATMs are inter-operable with other banks. Internet banking services, (e-banking) have been made available for POSB customers from 14.12.2018.
v. Through the e-banking facility, POSB account holders can make deposits into Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY) and the Post Office Public Provident Fund (PPF) accounts online from their POSB savings account.
vi. The POSB customers have also been provided with the facility of Mobile Banking from 15.10.2019.
vii. Postal life insurance (PLI) services are being provided through Core Insurance Solution (CIS) which has been rolled out in all the Post offices and through this solution, the customers can make premium payment at any post office and has also enabled central processing centres to provide faster claim settlement and after-sales service.
(c) In the state of West Bengal, all 1721 Departmental Post Offices have been computerised. All the 7263 Branch Post Offices of West Bengal are provided with Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) based Handheld Devices to provide networked services to rural population of West Bengal under DARPAN Project.
(d) The condition of the post office building that are in old and unhygienic conditions are closely monitored at Divisional level, Regional level & Circle level in West Bengal Circle. In last 3 years 13 Post Offices were shifted to new address. There is no proposal pending for shifting to new address as on 03.02.2021.