The Department of Posts has set its eyes on joining the e-commerce bandwagon, with an e-commerce portal of its own in the pipeline.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, John Samuel, member, Postal Services Board, said the department had signed agreements with major e-commerce sites such as Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal for e-commerce consignments across the country. The department’s own e-commerce portal would be launched shortly, through which products from local communities could be marketed through the post office network. Agreements were being signed with the Cashew Board and the Spices Board to sell their products via the postal network as well, Mr. Samuel said.
The department, he said, was eyeing a 20 per cent jump in revenue through the foray into e-commerce. Infrastructure for this initiative, apart from the network of 1.55 lakh post offices across the country, was being set up with e-commerce portal warehousing centres, parcel picking centres, parcel processing centres, and transport systems.
An investment of Rs.4,909 crore was being made during the current Five Year Plan for the India Post IT project, which would see computerisation and networking of all the 1.55 lakh post offices. Special focus was being given to Core Banking Solutions for Post Office Savings Bank operations. The Karunagapally head post office went live on the core banking system on Wednesday, while the Thiruvananthapuram GPO, Thiruvalla, Mavelikara, and Perumbavoor head post offices would start functioning on the core banking platform on January 27.  The department has signed agreements with Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal for e-commerce consignments.