(a) whether the Government proposes to make Post Offices village oriented;
(b) if so, the schemes being formulated by the Government to make the services provided by Post Offices more useful for the rural people; and
(c) the time from which the scheme is likely to be implemented in the country?
THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY(SHRI SHRI A. RAJA)
(a) The Postal system is already village oriented. Out of total Postal network of 1,55,035
Post Offices (as on 31.3.2008), 1,39,173 Post Offices are functioning in rural areas. This
implies that over 89% of the Post Offices are operating from villages.
(b) & (c) The conventional products like Money Order, Registration, Savings Bank services
etc. are already available in the Branch Post Offices functioning in villages. Recently, two
new schemes, viz. National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and Indira Gandhi National
Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) of the Government of India have been implemented through the
village Post Offices wherein the disbursal of the amount is done either through money order or
savings bank accounts.