Recommendations proposed for new role of SBCO in DOP Finacle.

Group of SBCO Officials conducted a workshop at Circle Office of T.N Circe Chennai where lot of SBCO staff, ICO and DAP staff of T.N Circle also participated. Group deliberated the current role of SBCO and the proposed role of SBCO in the backdrop of implementation of CBS. Following are the recommendations of the Group:-

General

• As and when SOs are migrated to CBS, staff working in SOSB Branch should be reduced and re-deployed either at POSB Counters or at CPC or in the SBCO Branch for assistance in physical voucher checking.
• In every HO, at least one PA will remain in SOSB branch who will take vouchers and LOTs from Sub Account and prepare Consolidated Journal of SOs and add HO figures. That PA will report directly to Incharge of the Head Post Office and will be responsible for handing over daily return alongwith vouchers to SBCO. This PA may be assigned the work of handling deceased claim cases and Certificate related work of SOs also.
• Handling of Agent Commission Schedules and ACG-17 by SBCO will be discontinued.
• Transfer of Account Opening Form (SB-3/AOF) at the time of closure of account for the accounts opened after migration will not be transferred to SBCO alongwith Account Closure Voucher.
•  In case of any adjustment if required in interest, Postmaster/Sub Postmaster will write error book and raise the issue with Divisional head with copy of error book who will approve adjustment and send letter to SBCO Incharge.
• SBCO has to keep a watch on Freeze/Unfreeze Account report of SBGRP, RD, PPF and raise objection in case of suspicion.
• SBCO Has to keep watch on some identified Office Accounts.
• Postmaster will provide list of cheques issued by HO against matured/closed accounts of HO and SOs and List of Transactions of Postmaster Office Account 0340. SBCO has to cross verify these entries and raise objections in case of any suspicion.
• Each SO will send copy of SB Cash statement of its office  to HO and HO (SBSO Branch) will stitch all the statements chronologically and send to SBCO after adding HO SB Cash Statement to SBCO alongwith daily return.
• SBCO will cross verify these SB Cash Reports with total of Scheme-wise consolidations and preserve the same in guard file to be maintained date-wise.
• Every CBS Office will send LOT of following office accounts on daily basis alongwith SB Return to HO , duly signed by Postmaster/Sub Postmaster which will hand over to the same to SBCO alongwith LOTs of these accounts of HO on daily basis alongwith daily return:- 0340, 0382, 0017,0409, 0410, 0408, 0096, 0098, 0437, 0322, 0387, 0382, 0339, 0007

• SBCO will preserve these LOTs in a separate bundle to be maintained office-wise and date-wise. In case of suspicion, SBCO will raise objections.
•  All SBCO users should be given Finacle End User Training first (without hand on) before giving specialized SBCO training.
• There are many Finacle menus through which SBCO can test check individual accounts. This will be shown to SBCO during specialized SBCO Training and it will be optional to carry out these checks and raise issues.
• Training material of specialized training finalized by the group is attached. It is recommended that the training should be of two days.

Major mistakes observed at Delivery Post offices in handling Parcel COD articles.

1)   COD Articles are taken receipt as Registered Parcel/VP Parcel at the time of Bag Opening:

v Check all the Parcels physically and take receipt of all COD parcels as COD only in Bag Opening option of Postman module. 

v Even though RMS (Parcel Hub) invoices the article as RP/VPP in the Parcel list, the delivery Post Office is supposed to take receipt of the article as COD only and raise error entry

v If the article is taken receipt as Registered Parcel/VP Parcel by mistake, don’t invoice the article as Registered Parcel/VP Parcel.   There is an option to the Supervisor of the Postman module to change the Non COD article into a COD Parcel.   Use this option, before invoicing the article to Postman/BO and change the article type to COD Parcel.

2.    Not requesting for electronic data if the article is physically received at an office other than the pin code to which it is booked

v By default, electronic data will be transmitted to the office to which the article is booked.

v If the article is received at an office other than the office to which it is booked, that office has to give request for electronic data.

v Electronic data will be sent within 3 hours

v If electronic data is not received within 3 hours, check the tracking of the article.

v If the article is already marked as RTS by some other office, the article has to be returned to sender by manual process

3.    Non usage of Sub Accounts module:

v Sub Accounts module should be in operation in all the HOs/SOs.

v The data of the articles delivered at Branch Post Offices will be transmitted to e Payment Server only if the amount of BO delivered articles and the amount entered under proper head in BO Daily account (sub accounts module) is tallied.

v Therefore, the BO Daily account has to be entered in Sub Accounts module properly.

4.    Non performing BO Verification:

v BO Verification is compulsory in order to transmit the data of COD Parcels delivered at Branch Post offices.

v For this purpose, the returns in Postman module has to be taken on the same day of BO Daily Account.

5.    Mismatch between the names in Sub Accounts module and Postman module

v There should not be any mismatch between the BO names appearing in Postman module and Sub Accounts module.   If any mismatch is there, then the articles delivered by such B.O.s will not be transmitted to e Payment Server. 

v Therefore, modify such BO names in Sub Accounts module to exactly match with that available in Postman module. 

Why India Post could become e-commerce’s most potent delivery partner.

Radhika P Nair | June 26, 2015

source:http://yourstory.com/2015/06/india-post-ecommerce/

Sharadamani Amma, an 87-year-old great grandmother, remembers a time when the sight of mail runners would cause a great deal of excitement in the small Kerala village she grew up in. The appearance of these postal employees, who carried mail between post offices on foot, meant a letter or money order or, god forbid, a telegram—a sure sign of ill news.

But those days are long gone. The postmen are no longer held in high regard in most of the country, and few in the current generation would have even stepped into a post office, at least in urban India.

Parivartan-India Post IT Modernisation Project News letter.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEWS LETTER.

Rural Post Offices will work as Common Service Centres; says Minister.

  Union Minister for Information and Technology and Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad said rural post offices across the country will also function as common service centres (CSCs) providing e-services. He said this while asserting that the postal department had a crucial role to play in bringing in digital revolution in the country.

"Our vision of digital India is to ensure that from a mason to barber to a tyre puncture repairer, all can access newer avenues of growth using communications equipment like a smart phone," said Prasad while inaugurating the revamped building of Bhowanipore post office here. "We are also committed to developing e-commerce, e-education and e-health. This is the larger vision of digital India. And in this digital India initiative, rural post offices have a very crucial role to play. "We have decided that all the 1.30 lakh rural post offices should also become common service centres (CSCs) to further provide services," the minister added.

Implemented under the National e-Governance Plan and formulated by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the CSCs are ICT-enabled front end service delivery points at the village-level for delivery of government, financial, social and private sector services in the areas of agriculture, health, education, entertainment, FMCG products, banking, insurance, pension, utility payments etc.

Prasad said he expected the Reserve Bank of India to grant payment license to the proposed Post Bank of India by July. "We expect to get the RBI nod by July. With 1,54,000 post offices the new initiative will usher in a financial revolution across the country," he said. Hailing the services by the postal department, Prasad said it has done a business of Rs.500 crore in the year in e-commerce besides opening over 52 lakh accounts under the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna receiving over Rs.1,000 in deposits. "Whatever, be the decline in services, people still respect the Indian Railways and the postal services. I urge you all to build upon that respect and contribute towards the growth of the country," said Prasad, urging the employees to contribute towards the government's initiative to modernise the postal department. Prasad also said state-run BSNL was also on the road to recovery.

"Now BSNL is running into losses in excess of Rs 8,000 crore. But in 2004, it earned a profit of Rs 10,000 crore. So we decided to revive it ... BSNL already has added 47 lakh new customers and its revenue has risen by 2%," he said. The minister also said there would be 100 crore mobile connections in the country in next few years. "In a country with a population of 125 crore, we now nearly 101 crore phone connections of which 98 crore are mobile phones. In the coming few years, we will have over 100 crore mobile phone connectivity across the country," Prasad said.

"Studies show that a country with more broadband connections has greater impact on the GDP growth. "So we are bringing national optical fibre network connecting over 2.5 lakh gram panchayats across the country, we are bringing in broadband revolution," he added.

Courtesy:Timesofindia.

Sensing huge business in logistics segment, India Post to raise tie-ups with etailers.

 MUMBAI: When did you last remember a postman knocking at you door? Even though it's hard to recall such an incident, your friendly neighbourhood postman may now appear at your doorstep more often, delivering a book or a gadget bought on an ecommerce portal.

The department of posts now delivers more than two lakh ecommerce parcels daily, double of what it used to a year ago, according to a national estimate. 

"Ecommerce fulfillment (shipping) is a big business opportunity for us," said Ashok Kumar Dash, chief postmaster general (Maharashtra Circle), India Post. "Associations with ecommerce portals are likely to go up in the coming days, and the quality of delivery in farflung areas will be crucial."For India Post, the new-age business is going to be a key revenue driver with phenomenal rise in daily mailing volumes as it is increasingly looking at associations with entities such as Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and YEP, a move aimed at revenue generation for the 200-year old straggler. 

For instance, in the Mumbai region of the Maharashtra circle, daily Amazon parcel deliveries have risen to about 7,000 a day at present from a mere 200 shipments in November, two people with the direct knowledge of the matter told ET. 

Flipkart too has started shipments to its customers using the postal services. In the Mumbai region, it has been sending around 700-800 parcels daily since the past three months, said one of the persons in the know of things. 

Two years ago, the ecommerce revenue was below Rs 200 crore, and it was estimated to be about Rs 400-500 crore in the year ending March 2015. 

All-India revenue from ecommerce is expected to be Rs 900-1,000 crore in FY16 for India Post, according to PN Ranjit Kumar, postmaster general (Mumbai), India Post. "Revenues are likely to rise in this segment," he said. Both, however, declined to share further details. The ecommerce sector in India has grown by 34% ( CAGR) since 2009 to touch $16.4 billion in 2014, and is expected to be about $22 billion in 2015, according to a recent report by PwC. This in turn has triggered a growth in the logistics business. 

India's logistics business is estimated at $100 billion, and India Post is hoping to cater to the growing demand in this sector, especially in tier-II and tier-III cities where the presence of private courier companies is limited. The postal department is trying to use its post office network of over 1.5 lakh branches. 

source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

India Post a step closer to start its own bank; gets informal approval from authorities.

MUMBAI: India Post has moved a step closer to starting its own bank as it has received an informal assurance from the authorities that it will be granted a payments bank license. 

The state-owned postal services department has floated an expression of interest, or EOI, inviting consultants for its banking foray, two people aware of the matter told ET. Top consultancy firms, including PwC, McKinsey, BCG and Deloitte are in the race to help in conceptualising the proposed bank's structure. The EOI will remain open for application for another month. 

This is one step before the department launches the request for proposal, or RFP, inviting official bids from consultants with price quotations. "There are precedents globally of successful transition of postal departments into banks," said Shinjini Kumar, executive director and leader, banking and capital markets, PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consulting firm. "Given their wide infrastructure and trust, India Post's business model is suitable for a bank." 

"But in the long run, the success of a business model depends on the successful execution and long-term sustainability. In the context of new digital businesses and competition, execution will be the key," she said. 

The first set of new banking licences will be issued by August. As many as 41 applicants have applied for the payments bank licence. "I hope to announce at least one set of bank licence by August end," Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan had said during the monetary policy review on June 2. 

"We need to upgrade the technology before we plunge into a banking business. Consulting firms can guide us in the right direction," said a senior official of India Post, who did not wish to be named. MS Ramanujan, a senior member from the Bengaluru circle, has been promoted to look after the banking business, but he is to assume official charge. 

"The major challenge to India Post is technology, where it requires a lot of revamping, particularly for a payments bank which is expected to be a technology heavy business model," said Saurabh Tripathi, partner and director, BCG.




Courtesy: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

Postal Assistant / Sorting Assistant 2015. SSC Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) 2015 Exam Notification Out

  

  

  Staff Selection Commission has notified the Combined Higher Secondary Level (10+2) Examination, 2015. The Staff Selection Commission will hold an examination for Recruitment of Postal Assistants/Sorting Assistants, Data Entry Operators and Lower Divisional Clerks on Sundays 01.11.2015, 15.11.2015 and 22.11.2015. Further details are as follows:

Advertisement F.No. 3/4/2015-P&P-I 

Important Dates

Opening Date for Online Registration: 13 June 2015

Closing Date for Online Registration: 13 July 2015 (5:00PM)

Date of Examination: 1 November 2015, 15 November 2015 and 22 November 2015

Note: Candidates can also apply through Post.

Pay of the Posts:

Postal Assistant/Sorting Assistant PB -1(Rs. 5200-20200) Grade Pay 2400

Data Entry Operator : Pay Band-1 (Rs. 5200-20200), Grade Pay Rs. 2400

Data Entry Operator : Pay Band-1 (Rs. 5200-20200), Grade Pay Rs. 1900

Lower Division Clerk: Pay Band -1 (Rs. 5200-20200), Grade Pay Rs. 1900

Vacancies: Tentatively the vacancies for the post of Postal Assistant/Sorting Assistant, LDC and DEO are 3523, 2049 and 1006 respectively.

Educational Qualification ( As on 01.08.2015)

* Must have passed 12th Standard or equivalent examination from a recognized Board or University.

* Candidates who have not acquired but will acquire the educational qualification and acquire documentary evidence from the Board/University in support thereof as on 01.08.2015 will also be eligible.

Age Limit: 18-27 years as on 01.08.2015 (Candidates born not before 02-08-1988 and not later than 01-08-1997.) .Age relaxation as applicable for different categories.

How to apply:

Applications must be submitted only in the prescribed format (Annexure-I) On-line or by Post. Detailed instructions as in Annexure - II A or Annexure - II B, may be referred to for postal applications and on-line applications respectively.

Scheme of the Examination: The Examination will be conducted in three tiers as indicated below-

Tier -I -- Written Examination (Objective Multiple Choice Type)

Tier -II -- Written Examination (Objective Multiple Choice Type)

Tier -III -- Personality Test cum Interview/Computer Proficiency Test/Skill Test (wherever applicable)/Document Verification.

Please note: The Commission reserves the right to make changes in the scheme of examination such as conduct of Tier-I and Tier-II examination in on-line mode, treating Tier-I examination as only qualifying and not conducting personality test cum interview for some or all posts etc.

Application Fee:

--Rs. 100 (One hundred only)

Payment of application fee is exempted for all women candidates and candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Physically Handicapped and

Ex-servicemen eligible for reservation, as per Government orders.

** For Paper or Off-Line Applications: Candidates should pay the fee by means of Central Recruitment Fee Stamps (CRFS) only.

** The candidates submitting application form online (computer based) should pay the fee of Rs 100 (Rupees one hundred only) by means of SBI Challan or Online payment through Net banking or any credit/debit cards only.

Scheme of Examination:

The examination will consist of a Written Examination and Skill Test for the post of Data Entry Operator and Written Test and Typing Test for the post of Postal

Assistant & Sorting Assistant (PA/SA) and Lower Division Clerk on Computer.

Written examination (Objective type):

Part I: General Intelligence (50 questions) - 50 Marks

Part II: English Language (Basic Knowledge) ( 50 questions ) - 50 Marks

Part III: Quantitative Aptitude (Basic Arithmetic Skill) (50 questions) - 50 Marks

Part IV: General Awareness (50 questions) - 50 Marks

Total: 200 Marks

Total Duration /Timing: 2 Hours (10.00 A.M. to 12.00 Noon) or (2:00 PM to 4:00 PM)

Note: The proposal for online examination is under consideration of the Government of India and if approved examination may be held on-line.

There will be negative marking of 0.25 marks for each wrong answer.

For more details check official notification from below link. In case of any doubts, feel free to ask us through comments, we will get back to you.

Notification : Click Here

Application Form : Click Here

Courtesy:nfpe.blogspot.in

The Future of Post Offices as Banking Institutions in India-Policy Report by Nandini Dubey.

Nandini Dubey

 This report seeks to integrate threads of India’s financial inclusion dynamics and recognise the role post offices could play with their homespun technology. It anticipates a future for Indian post offices as banking institutions, taking into consideration the deposits, performance, and administration of the branches that provide Core Banking Solutions (CBS) in Chennai. This report will look at the transitions and institutional layering that the Post Office Savings Banking is going through. This report aims to provide an unbiased evaluation of post office banking, focussing on the loopholes that need to be plugged in the process of institutional layering. The report includes suggestions that will enable the Indian postal services to become an instrument of financial inclusion. The main conclusion of the study is that post offices can do better as an agency commission for credit facilities than as a provider of first party services.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

IndiaPost inks deal to issue 1.5 crore debit cards.

  MUMBAI: IndiaPost will soon issue debit cards to its 1.5 crore account holders with the Department of Post signing a Rs 30 crore deal with CMS Info System to supply Rupay enabled cards. The Department of Post (DOP) has over 10 crore account holders in India, and has already begun deploying ATMs across the country in aphased manner.

The personalized debit cards for DOP will be issued on the NPCI platform and their usage would initially only be on ATMs installed at DOP branches, as a closed loop environment. The cards can later be used on other ATMs with Rupay affiliation. These cards will initially be of the magstripe variant, with the option of EMV being available to the account holders after a set period of time.

"This deal will power issuance of personalized cards to complement IndiaPost's ATM deployment plans over a three-year period. We expect this to benefit people using teller facilities at the branches, as they can now begin to use these cards for more convenient cash withdrawals," said Mokam Singh Matta, Head of Card Business, CMS Info System. In addition to financial cards, CMS also personalizes Smart Cards which are being increasingly used in large scale government projects, including National ID, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and Employee's State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Some of these form a critical backbone for financial inclusion projects in the country, he said.

IndiaPost which is a large mobiliser of deposits is currently awaiting approval from Reserve Bank of India to set up the Postbank of India. The government department, which has the largest financial services distribution network across the country, is presently running a large deficit on postal services. With traditional mail services on a decline due to electronic communication, the department is looking for opportunity in logisitics and financial services.

The department has already embarked on deploying core banking solutions which will make it easier for customers to get service outside their home branch.

Courtesy:-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

PLI SERVICE TAX CALCULATOR AND READY RECKONER FOR SO & BO

   As per the revised rate of Service Tax for PLI / RPLI w.e.f. 01.06.2015, I have developed a Calculator for the easy use at Computerized Post Offices. I have also prepared a Ready Reckoner Table for the easy use at non-Computerized Post Offices and Branch Offices. The download links are given below.

(1) PLI/RPLI Service Tax Calculator w.e.f. 01.06.2015 (for use at Computerized Post Offices)

Download

(2) PLI/RPLI Service Tax Ready Reckoner Table w.e.f. 01.06.2015 (for use at Non-Computerised Post Offices and Branch Offices)

Download

Thanks to

Sri. Manu V R ​PM Grade I, Muvattupuzha Market PO,Aluva Division, Kerala 0485-2832391​​, 9496114743