On December 22, the Ministry of Communications launched the ‘Digital Advancement of Rural Post Office for A New India’ (DARPAN)project to improve the overall quality of service levels of rural post offices, add value to services and achieve “financial inclusion” of the‘un-banked’ rural population. The IT modernisation project with an outlay of Rs. 1400 crore, unveiled by the Department of Posts (DoP), provides a low power technology solution to each Branch Postmaster (BPM) which will enable each of approximately 1.29 lakh Branch Post Offices (BOs) to improve the level of services being offered to rural customers across all the states.
Some 43,171 Branch Post Offices have already migrated under the ‘DARPAN’project; the project is expected to be completed by March 2018.
The project aims to
(i) increase the rural reach of the Department of Posts and enable BOs to increase traffic of all financial remittances, savings accounts, rural postal life insurance, and cash certificates;
(ii) improve mail operations processes by allowing for automated booking and delivery of accountable article;
(iii) increase revenue using retail post business;
(iv) provide third-party applications; and
(v)provide disbursements for social security schemes such as MGNREGS.
As part of the IT modernisation project, the DoP has carried out business process re-engineering across various functional areas and has created To-Be processes that will enable it to achieve these objectives. It has set up 991 ATMs across the country, which are interoperable with other banks. Till January 2018, more than 1.12 crore transactions had been carried out on the DoP ATMs out of which over 70 lakh transactions had been done by non-DoP customers. DoP is the only government player in this space.
DoP has been the backbone of the country’s communication for more than 150 years. It is engaged in 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 Department of Posts also acts as an agent for the 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 1.5 lakh post offices (approximately), the DoP has the most widely distributed postal network in the world.