• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

M. Ramesh

CHENNAI, Feb. 11

THE two main `premium products' of the Department of Posts - Speed Post and Business Post - have picked up more business in the first nine months of the current financial year, as compared to the same period of the previous year.

The DoP earned Rs 175 crore from Speed Post and Rs 203 crore from Business Post - up 26 per cent and 78 per cent respectively, from Rs 138.87 crore and Rs 114 crore the Department earned in the April-December period of the previous year.

The numbers themselves may not be significant, compared to the size of DoP's operations, but they indicate an upward trend in the department's value-added services, senior officials say.

According to Dr U. Srinivasa Raghavan, Chief Postmaster General, Chennai, both Speed Post and Business Post are set to pick up more business, if only because of the renewed corporate focus. In the case of Speed Post, the department is positioning itself as the most cost-effective option, particularly to the corporate sector.

In the coming years, the DoP would address the corporate sector more, as an international courier, because it is now ready to do so. Over the last one year, the DoP has invested on creating a multi-tier tracking system, which will ensure safe and timely delivery of documents and parcels.

Now that it is ready to demonstrate its reliability, the DoP expects more corporate business. "After all, we are the cheapest - a letter to the US (by Speed Post) costs only Rs 425, while other couriers charge in the upwards of Rs 1,000," Dr Srinivasa Raghavan said.

According to him, it is now only a question of branding and publicity, because "many corporates are making the mistake of going by the hype" and handing over their international letters to the MNC courier services.

Similarly, DoP expects a sharper growth in Business Post, with companies having to communicate often with their shareholders. (Under this service, the DoP undertakes the entire pre-mailing activities of corporates - inserting the letter into the envelope, gumming, franking, sorting and forwarding.) The charge? The normal postage plus thirty-five paise, per letter.

This service again is expected to pick up because of the increased frequency of mandatory mailings and "no company can afford to have on their payroll an enormous staff for mailroom work."

In Chennai, the DoP has introduced a variant of this scheme, on an experimental basis. It is called `guaranteed deliver service'. For a customer who gives not less than 10,000 articles (letters/parcels), the DoP will give an acknowledgement (useful for non-repudiation) for an additional fee of Rs 2 per article. This at present, is being tried "on a low key" for city mails. Corporates like BSNL find this useful for sending bills to their own customers.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Air India, IA told to get ready for Gulf evacuation

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line