In this world of emails and SMS, Indians still love the old way of sending letters. With post offices been upgraded to offer high-tech courier services, banking facilities, insurance and more, the importance of good old Postal Department has just increased.
In its way to modernize postal services for the digital era, India Post has started geotagging over 1.5 lakh post offices across India with the help of Department of Space on India’s own Mapping service Bhuvan [bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in].
India Post has over 1.55 lakh post offices spread across India of which more than 1.39 lakh are in the rural areas. With this geo-tagging, customers can easily locate the nearest port office, can know all the services being offered there and office hours.
“More than 1,50,000 post offices have been geotagged and their exact location on a GIS satellite imagery map along with photograph, services and office timings etc have been made available on the portal,” said an official in Communications and IT Ministry.
Based on the geo-tagging India Post has begun monitoring of the letter boxes and ensuring timely clearance through a mobile app.
Recently to tap millions of unbanked Indians especially in the rural India, India Post was granted Payments Bank license by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Besides this 910 post office ATMs have been installed across the country.