DoP mulling e-mail route to transmit unregistered mails

NEW DELHI: Indian postal department may look at the feasibility of transmitting unregistered mails like post cards through e-mail instead of carrying it physically from source till its destination.

"India Post may conduct a comprehensive study of the viability and feasibility of transmitting unregistered mail through e-mail rather than through physical transportation as at present," the department said in its submission citing recommendation of task force to a Parliamentary panel on IT .

The panel, chaired by BJP MP Anurag Thakur, tabled its report in the Lok Sabha today.

The report of Task Force on Leveraging the Post Office Network in November recommended that the Department of Posts should leverage its IT infrastructure to reduce delivery cost and transmitting unregistered mails such as post card.

Citing use of e-mail, the task force said "there is no reason why the Post Card cannot be scanned and transmitted by e-mail to the receiving Post Office and thereafter printed there and delivered to the addressee, thus saving on the cost of physical transporting the article."

The department is currently rolling out IT Modernisation project to connect and computerise all its 1.55 lakh post office across for project outlay of Rs 4,909 crore.

The project was to be completed in 2015 but the department estimates it to be completed by March 2017.

Besides computerisation, the project includes deployment of core banking solution, setting up data centre facility, integration of postal networks, rural hardware (RH), rural system integrator and mail operation hardware.