Pune postal dept. experiments with e-post

PUNE: With modes of communication changing ever so swiftly, the postal

department has decided not to be left behind in the rat race. Instead, the

departmental authorities are seriously toying with introducing the concept of

e-post in the country. And Pune is all set to pioneer this concept on a pilot

basis in India.

E-post will not only make life easier for people who are Net-savvy but will

also reach out to those who have little connection with this kind of

communication. This means that people living in remote areas can now get an

'e-letter' provided their relatives have e-mailed a message to them. E-posting

works on the simple concept of providing an e-mail ID to the user who would then

send a message to the receiver. The message is sent to the nearest post office

that has Internet connectivity, where it is converted into the conventional

paper format and delivered to the receiver.

Pune Post Master General Col. V Sadasivam said that a letter sent through

this process will reach its destination in just 24 hours. Now, an individual

sitting in Boston could well reach out to his or her relatives in say Baramati,

a small town in Pune district through e-mail. "The idea is to offer the

benefits of technology to customers and ensure a speedier delivery process in

the bargain. Those who are still outside the purview of the Net are our major

target audience, he says. With the Net connectivity estimated to rise over eight

times over the existing one million users by the year 2003, Col. Sadasivam is

confident that e-post will be a success.

Pune region, which handles eight lakh mails per day, is ready to experiment

with this concept. The infrastructure is already in place, since a major portion

of functioning in post offices has already been computerized. All that remains

now is to get Internet connectivity and register its own domain name for a Web

site. The Pune region alone has around 500 departmental post offices and another

200 extra departmental post offices. The concept will first be tried out in Pune,

Ahmednagar, Solapur and Satara districts in Maharashtra and 20 other centers

from different parts of the state will be connected in the second phase.

The only limiting factor here is the possible lack of connectivity to an ISP.

Even this has not deterred Col. Sadasivam from attempting this project since he

believes that the nearest Net connected post office could then take on the

responsibility of converting the matter into hard copy and delivering the mail

to the doorstep of the receiver.

Even as the department is still working out the aspects of an e-commerce

element in this venture, they have already begun training staff to use the Net

and familiarize them with the concept of e-mails. The Technology Section of the

Postal Department is currently looking after this project. A separate division

will later be carved to take care of the e-mails.

A total of 500 mails per day in major centers would mean a break-even point.

For smaller centers, this number would reduce to 100 mails per day.