'Post Office on Wheels' takes the road

The Department of Posts on Tuesday introduced the 'Post Office on Wheels' project in the city, with the aim to bring the facilities offered by the India Post closer to citizens. As part of the project, a well-equipped van will run through various parts of the city on daily basis offering on-the-spot services. Pune is the first city in the state to run this project.

The van, introduced on Tuesday will cover the West region of the city. The department has plans to expand the services in remaining parts of the city with the introduction of another van in near future.

"The project will benefit senior citizens, housewives as well as the corporates who find it difficult to visit post offices during working hours. The van will now take postal services to the customers," said K C Mishra, postmaster general, Pune region, after inaugurating the project on Tuesday.

The van was flagged off at the hands of Dada J P Vaswani of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission.

Mishra said the van is authorised to handle all types of postal business, including various e-enabled services, opening of new post office saving account, issue of certificates, sale of postcards, sale of postal life insurance, sale of UTI products and all other postal services other than speed post. It is fully equipped, full-fledged computerised post office with all required software and hardware, coupled with UPS and generator backup.

The van will work between 8 am and 8 pm daily and will cover around 30 locations in a week. It will stop at each location for about two hours. A dedicated team of postal staff is deployed to handle the operations.

The van will be at Dhankawadi, Ambegaon, Dattanagar and Satara Road areas on Wednesday. On Thursday, it will be at DP Road and Aundh areas. On Friday, it will visit Baner and Balewadi areas and on Saturday, it will travel in Kothrud and Warje areas. The van will mainly cover residential areas and societies. It will travel to around 30 spots in these areas.

24-hour speed post services

Two post offices in the city - Pune railway stations and the GPO - now offer speed post services for 24 hours, K C Mishra, postmaster general, Pune region, said. Earlier, the service was available only at the Pune railway station. The services are being extended mainly for the benefit of IT professionals, students, and office goers, Mishra said.

Courtesy: TOI dtd 02/11/2011