Everything you need to know post office

Post Office

1. The Postal history of India is related to the times of Portuguese, Dutch, French, Danish and British colonialists gained powered in India. British introduced the idea of postal services in India during eighteenth century.

2. East India Company administered the services & established the first post office in Mumbai, Chennai & Calcutta between 1764 & 1766 & it was named as company mail, but till that time these services were not open to public.

3. Warren Hastings (Governor General of British India from 1773-1784) opened the posts to the public in March 31, 1774 at Calcutta.

4. Prior to this the main purpose of the postal system had been to serve the commercial interests of the East India Company, economic and political needs remained a driving force.

5. Post Office Act (1837) reserved the government the exclusive right to convey letters in the nation of the East India Company.

6. From the late eighteenth century political power began to slip away from the East India Company. The Company was finally abolished in 1858 and India became a Crown colony ruled directly by Parliament.

7. In the early history it was found that the posts was delivered with the help of royal pigeons, camels, horses during the Mughal period & was started by sher shah suri with 3000 miles of communication & for the first time parcels were being carried as part of regular mail service.

8. A large establishment for the transmission of messages is recorded for Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta in 322 BC. Ibn Batuta, the Moroccan traveler to India in 1310 AD had detailed the mail system of Sulatn Mohammed bin Tughlaq but the massive reorganization of this system took place under Sher Shah Suri. It was developed and maintained under the Mogul and later rulers.

9. The horse courier system was also known as mounted post & was the first officially record of the postal system of a kingdom being used for trade and business communication.

10. Postal services are the backbone of the country's communication & had played a crucial role in the country's socio-economic development. Penny postage was introduced by Lord Dalhousie in 1963.

First Post Office in India

Although the Indian Post Office was established in 1837, Asia's first adhesive stamp, the Sinde Dawk, was introduced in 1852 by Sir Bartle Frere, the British East India Company's administrator of the province of Sind who had introduced the penny post.

In July 1879, the Post Office of India introduced a quarter anna postcards that could be posted from one place to another within British India. This was the cheapest form of post provided to the Indian people to date and proved a huge success. The establishment of a large postal system spanning India resulted in unprecedented postal access: a message on a postcard could be sent from one part of the country to another part (often to a physical address without a nearby post office) without additional postage affixed. This was followed in April 1880 by postcards meant specifically for government use and by reply postcards in 1890.

In 1835 a Committee was set up for unification of customs and postal system of all the presidencies. The result was the first Indian Post Office Act of 1837. It not only provided for uniform rates and routes but for the uniform designs and other specifications of the postmarks for each category of post office.

A Commission was setup in 1850 and submitted its report in 1851 that resulted in the post office act of 1854. Under the provisions of this act the monopoly of carrying mail in entire area of British possessions in India were granted to Indian Post office and office of the Director General of Post Offices of India was established.

Mr. H P A B Riddle, till then the Postmaster General of North West Presidency, was appointed the first Director General in May 1854. The adhesive stamps were introduced on October 1, 1854 on all India basis.  Meanwhile in 1852 adhesive postage stamps were issued for use within the province of Sind, now in Pakistan. These were the first adhesive postage stamps in Asia.

Contribution to Economy

Apart from providing regular postal services the post offices in India are also providing financial services to the public through Post Office Savings Bank. The Indian Post starts Postal Life Insurance in the year 1984 as a welfare scheme for the employees of the Post and Telegram Department due to huge demand of the scheme latter on it was opened for employees of other departments and finally in the year 1995 it was opened for all people. In addition to these services post office also provide money transfer services. Post Office Savings Bank which was establish with an objective of encouraging saving habit and thrift among the masses has now become a medium of mobilizing a huge amount of funds.

Difference between Indian Postal Saving & Other Commercial Saving

1. There is a common perception that banks provide financial services, while post offices provide mailing services only.

1. However, many banking facilities are today being provided by post offices such as opening of accounts and saving scheme with better rates of interest than banks.

1. There are many income tax saving schemes offered by post offices, which makes their products very attractive for people.

Role of Post Office in Financial Inclusion

Financial Inclusion is the availability of banking services at an affordable cost to disadvantaged low-income groups. The Indian post offers many financial services throughout all its branches. This includes various post office savings schemes, postal life insurance, mutual fund, money remittance, forex services etc.

As on March 31, 2011, there are nearly 25 crore postal savings bank account under various post office savings bank schemes. The Department of Posts has taken the responsibility to disburse the MGNREGA wages through Post Offices by opening savings bank accounts in the names of MGNREGA beneficiaries.

The Department is also contributing to the efforts in financial inclusion by payment of benefits under various social security pension schemes via. IGNOAPS (Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme), IGNWPS (Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme) and Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY Scheme), a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Maternity Benefit Scheme. Such payments are being effected either through money orders or Post Office Saving Bank accounts.

Stamps

I. The first postal stamp in India was introduced on 1 July 1852 in the Scinde district.

II. In 1854 the introduction of uniform postage rates led to the development of the first postage stamps valid for use throughout India.

III. As with the introduction of uniform postage in Britain this led to a rapid increase in use of the postal system.

IV. The volume of mail doubled between 1854 and 1866, and again between 1866 and 1871.

V. The first pictorial stamps were issued in 1931.

VI. There was a victory issue in 1946, followed shortly by a first Dominion issue. The three stamps in the Dominion issue depicted the Ashoka Pillar, the new flag of India, and an aeroplane.

Indian Post

Indian Post is a bank serving for more than 150 years. It is one of the world's largest mailing network divide out a separate vertical to manage banking services, a move that will help it win RBI indication for interoperability of its ATMs with those of PSU banks. Postal system touches the lives of Indian citizens in many ways: delivering mails, accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes, providing life insurance cover under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) and providing retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc.

The DoP (Department of Posts) acts as an agent for Government of India in discharging other services for citizens such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) wage disbursement and old age pension payments. With 1, 55,015 Post Offices, the DoP has the most widely distributed postal network in the world.

Saving Schemes in Post office are:-

• Post Office Savings Account

• 5-Year Post Office Recurring Deposit Account (RD)

• Post Office Time Deposit Account (TD)

• Post Office Monthly Income Scheme Account (MIS)

• Senior Citizen Savings Scheme (SCSS)

• 15 year Public Provident Fund Account (PPF​)

• National Savings Certificates (NSC)

• Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP​)

• Sukanya Samriddhi Accounts

Kisan Vikas Patra

Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) is a saving certificate scheme launched by the government of India in 1988 but due its misuse the scheme was closed in 2011 & was relaunched in 2014. Benefits of this scheme are as follows:

• Amount Invested doubles in 110 months (9 years & 2 months). Thus the applicable interest rate is 8.7%.

• Certificate can be purchased by an adult for himself or on behalf of a minor or by two adults.

• KVP can be purchased from any Departmental Post office & will be available in denominations of Rs.1,000, Rs. 5,000, Rs. 10,000, and Rs. 50,000.

• Facility of nomination is available & no upper ceiling on investment.

• Certificate can be transferred from one person to another and from one post office to another.

• Minimum lock-in period is 2 years and 6 months.

• KVP can be encashed in eight equal monthly installments after the lock-in period.

• No KYC norms would be applicable at the time of purchase of KVP, PAN details will not be required.

Facalities offered by Indian Postal Department are:-

Financial facilities: These facilities are provided through the post office's savings schemes like Public Provident Fund (PPF), Kisan Vikas Patra, and National Saving Certificates in addition to normal retail banking functions of monthly income schemes, recurring deposits, savings account, time deposits and money order facility.

Mail facilities: Mail services consist of parcel facilities that is trans-mission of articles from one place to another; registration facility to provide security of the transmitted articles and insurance facility to provide insurance cover for all risks in the course of transmission by post.

Allied facilities: Post offices also provide a variety of allied services to customers.

• Greeting post: A range of delightful greeting cards for every occasion.

• Media post: An innovative and effective vehicle for Indian corporates to advertise their brand through postcards, envelopes, aerograms, telegrams, and also through letterboxes.

• Direct post is for direct advertising. It can be both addressed as well as unaddressed.

• International Money Transfer through collaboration with Western Union financial services, USA, which enables remittance of money from 185 countries to India.

• Passport facilities: A unique partnership with the ministry of external affairs for facilitating passport application.

• Speed Post: It has over 1000 destinations in India and links with 97 major countries across the globe.

• E-bill post is the latest offering of the department to collect bill payment across the counter for BSNL and Bharti Airtel.

Postal Services

In 2013 it was revealed that the Indian postal service had formulated plans to enter the banking industry after RBI guidelines for the issuance of new banking licenses were released. They have opened a Post Bank of India, an independent banking service.

Postal Code

Postal Code also known as Postal Index Number or Pin or Pincode is a six digit code used by the Indian postal administration. This system was system was introduced on 15 August 1972 by Shriram Bhikaji Velankar, an additional secretary in the Union Ministry of Communications to simplify the manual sorting and delivery of mail by eliminating confusion over incorrect addresses.

Post Office & First World War

1. By 1914 the Post Office employed over 250,000 people making it the biggest economic enterprise in Britain and the largest single employer of labour in the world.

2. On the eve of war the Post Office not only handled a yearly total 5.9 billion items of post but was responsible for the nation's telegraph and telephone systems, as well as providing savings bank and other municipal facilities at thousands of branch post offices.

3. When war was declared in 1914 an outbreak of national fervour saw huge numbers of men clamour to enlist with the armed forces, including 11,000 Post Office staff.

4. The Post Office also had its own battalion comprised entirely of postal staff: the Post Office Rifles (POR). This infantry force fought on the Western Front suffering heavy casualties at Ypres and the Somme.

5. Receiving hundreds of gallantry awards and one Victoria Cross, approximately 12,000 men joined the colours with the POR. Of these, some 1,800 were killed and 4,500 were wounded.

6. With the onset of trench warfare, all mails bound for troops on the Western Front were sorted at the London Home Depot by the end of 1914. Covering five acres of Regents Park, this was said to be the largest wooden structure in the world employing over 2,500 mostly female staff by 1918. During the war the Home Depot handled a staggering 2 billion letters and 114 million parcels.

7. Finally, the First World War greets the end of the famous Penny Post. The Treasury had been heavily drained by the huge costs of the war and the government needed to raise extra revenue by all possible means.

8. The standard national postage rate of one penny for letters had stood for 75 years and was carefully left in June 1918 when postage was raised by a half penny.

Interesting facts

• After independence the responsibility of the postal services was transferred to the new Indian Government.

• In 1870, the Post Office was given control of the telegraph system. The women who worked as telegraphists became Post Office employees. This was the first time women had been employed in substantial numbers by the GPO and their employment was seen as something novel and experimental.

• In a Pincode the first four digits are common & the last two digits represent the delivery office within the sorting district.

• There are total nine PIN zones in India, including eight regional zones and one functional zone (for the Indian Army).

• The Victoria Cross (VC) is Britain's highest award for gallantry. It is awarded only rarely, and issued only for the highest possible bravery. Many of the recipients lost their lives in the act that gained them the medal. The award was first conceived by Prince Albert, Consort to Queen Victoria, in recognition of the bravery of men of all ranks during the Crimean War. During the First World War it was awarded 628 times, four of these awarded were to postal workers.

• Total post office in India is 1,54,882 as on 31^st March 2014 out of which 1,39,182 are in the rural areas. At the time of independence, there were 23,344 Post Offices, which were primarily in urban areas.

• The first Post Office in India was opened at Kolkata in 1727 & headquarters of Indian postal system is in New Delhi.

• Hobby of collecting stamps is called Philately. World Postal Day is observed in October 9 & Indian Postal Day is observed in October 10.

• Highest post office in the world is situated at Hikkim (Himachal Pradesh).

National Philatelic Museum

This museum at dak bhawan in New Delhi & was operated by the Indian post. This museum was inaugurated on 6^th July 1968 with the beginning of Philatelic Advisory Committee on 18^th September 1962. Besides the large collection of India Postage stamps designed, printed and issued, it has a large collection of Indian states, both confederate and feudatory, early essays, proofs and colour trials, a collection of Indian stamps "used abroad" and as well as early Indian postcards, postal stationery and thematic collections.