India Post provides a number of services to the people of India in the areas of transmission of mail, small savings, insurance and retail etc. Presence of other private service providers in these areas including that of mail transmission is a source of competition to the Department of Posts. This competition provides the Department of Posts an opportunity as well as impetus to improve its quality of service in its various areas of operations so as to meet the expectations of the customer’s and increase its volume of business.

In the area of mail transmission, Department of Posts has introduced Speed Post Service to meet the customers need for a faster and time bound express mail service.

There is no authoritative data available regarding quality of service of private courier services viz-a-viz Speed Post service. However, Speed Post service has been able to face the competition and gain the trust and the confidence of the customers which is reflected in the steady growth of traffic of Speed Post articles booked as well as revenue generated in the country over the years. The revenue of Speed Post grew at an annual rate of 19 % in the year 2009-10 over that of last year.

The Department has reviewed the functioning of Speed Post service in the country and prepared an action plan to tone up the functioning of Speed Post and has taken a number of steps in this regard. The details are as under:

• A project for Mail Network Optimization has been initiated in March 2010 in order to tone up the functioning of Speed Post and other mail services. The objective of this project is to optimize the existing mail network and effectively monitor the same through Key Performance Indicators. The Project, inter-alia, involves:

 Development and deployment of date-based Key Performance Indicators to measure the service delivery performance of Speeed Post and other mail services.

 Suitable upgradation of Speed Net, which is the web-based Track and Trace Software for Speed Post, to measure the Key Performance Indicators.

 Monitoring and review of quality of Speed Post operations in twenty eight major cities, that handle majority of the total speed post traffic in the country, with the help of the Key Performance Indicators through fortnightly video conferences.

• Technological upgtradation of 74 Speed Post Centres during the current plan period for improving the efficiency of the operations.

• Establishment of 39 premium Speed Post delivery centres during the current plan period for improving the quality of delivery.

• Establishment of 25 new Speed Post Centres during the current plan period.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Shri Sachin Pilot in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

Mail Network Optimization: KPI-driven upgrades and expanded Speed Post centres to bolster service competitiveness. The Department has initiated a Mail Network Optimization project emphasising deployment of date-based Key Performance Indicators and enhancement of the Speed Net Track and Trace system to measure service delivery, together with KPI-driven monitoring of operations in twenty-eight major cities, technological upgradation of Speed Post Centres, establishment of premium delivery centres, and creation of additional Speed Post Centres to improve competitiveness and quality of Speed Post Service.