EDITORIAL
Digital transformation may be the need of the hour, but it must be citizen-friendly
If you’re not a regular at India Post, you might have missed the ambitious IT 2.0 upgrade that is underway in postal centres across the country—including Goa. Some of the shrinking number of people who still use the post—and some depend on it a lot—would have surely seen the ‘rangoli’ outside the offices, announcing the switchover. This ‘digital transformation’ sounds promising and interesting. That its birth was mired in some glitches is another part of the story. The more important issue that needs focus is the future of a nearly two-century-old institution and the role it can still play in the country.
Incidentally, IT 2.0 is India Post’s ambitious digital transformation initiative. It aims at modernising the vast postal network by migrating to a cloud-native, unified digital platform. It is being rolled out in phases from mid-2025 and will have modules for real-time tracking, digital payments (including UPI), secure identity access, automated booking and delivery, financial reconciliation, HR self-service, and a revamped complaint management system. Developed by the Centre for Excellence in Postal Technology (CEPT), IT 2.0 promises enhanced “efficiency, transparency, and customer experience”. You should be able to ‘book’ your registered mail from your own desktop and then have it dropped at the post office (or even picked up). Sadly, there were glitches during the switchover, and this caused downtime since the weekend.
It is true that postal services worldwide have lost their sheen due to the growth of modern and electronic forms of communication. Why send letters that take days when you can dash off an email in minutes? Isn’t the postcard too antiquated a form of communication, though amazingly inexpensive? Yet, on the other hand, to deliver newspapers, magazines, and even books and parcels, the postal services play a rather useful role. Go to a place like Mapusa, to see the small and large parcels being packed efficiently and still sent via post—far more inexpensive than couriers. But here, the litany of praise needs to taper off.
Users of India Post complain of the problems they often face: servers not working, poor signals disrupting transactions, difficulties in getting passbooks updated, or even a lack of staff. Recently, though, the main Goa branches (including Panaji, Mapusa, Margao, etc) extended their registered counter timings, which has reduced the rush and enhanced user convenience. Now, you can get an article registered till about 8 pm.
It’s important to understand its background. India Post was established by the British in 1854, when still under the so-called East India Company. It introduced uniform postage rates and the first postage stamp, the ‘Scinde Dawk’. Quickly, it evolved into a vast communication network across British India, connecting urban centres and remote regions through mail, telegrams, and money orders. In the 1857 uprising, the Indian postal services played a crucial role in maintaining British administrative communication and suppressing the revolt against colonial rule. After Independence in 1947, India Post shifted to act as an instrument of national integration and development.
Even today, while it plays its role, questions have been raised, especially in Goa. Shortly, certain categories of postal items (for example, ‘printed book post’ and ‘registered post’) are being done away with. This would make postal services costlier and SpeedPost-dependent. This newspaper recently highlighted the hiring of postmen from Maharashtra. Goa still falls under the Maharashtra Circle. Understaffing, poor customer service, and jurisdictional mismatches need to be addressed. Finally, India Post needs to work hard to reinvent itself and stay relevant to the times and their needs.
