India Post to take e-biz to rural areas

India Post has ambitious plans to provide e-commerce facilities in rural areas and thereby provide a forum for rural entrepreneurs to sell their produce to a larger market.

Speaking at a press meet here on Wednesday, Postmaster General of the south Karnataka region, Shirthady Rajendra Kumar, said the process to identify handicrafts that could be marketed using the facilities was currently on. This will allow products such as Channapatna dolls and others to be sold to consumers directly at their doorsteps, he said.

Even though the project has been launched in other parts of the country, the pilot project will be taken up in the South Karnataka Region of India Post.

With this, India Post aims to launch e-commerce facilities in rural areas, which were hitherto being restricted only to urban manufacturers and business entrepreneurs. “This will facilitate extending the reach of rural entrepreneurs to the national market,” he said.

He said the project was part of the Digital India campaign under which India Post will have agreements with firms that provide door delivery services. The facility will be launched in two months.

Of the 1.3 lakh post offices in the country, the south Karnataka region has 3,810 post offices. Of these, 228 have been identified under various divisions for e-commerce facilities in the first phase.

Accordingly, 27 post offices in Chikkamagaluru division, 17 in Kodagu, 32 in Nanjangud, 10 in Hassan, 16 in Mandya, 71 in Tumakuru and 55 post offices in Udupi division will get the facility.

He said services of India Post were now becoming faster and hassle-free, with the Department of Posts adopting core banking, information and communication technology practices, core system integrator, among others.