Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal
has called for restructuring of 150-year-old Department of Post by
separating its regulatory and services functions to meet challenges of
technological age.
"The postal department
should also restructure itself to meet challenges of 21st century. The
Department of Post (DoP) should look into prospect of bifurcating the
ministry from the regulator and the operator, just as was done in the
telecom sector," Sibal told PTI.
He said that the DoP should
explore possibility of having different entities namely policy making,
regulator and service provider. "No decision has been taken yet. It is
all a matter of debate and dialogue at the moment," Sibal said.
DoP, which has around 5 lakh employees, is responsible for policy making, regulation and providing postal services, at present.
The over 100-year old Indian Post Office
Act bars any individual or entity from delivering letters for
commercial purpose. The business of private courier companies is built
around delivering documents, parcels and others items which do not fall
under the category of 'letter'.
Sources in the ministry said
that Sibal held a meeting with DoP officials early this week on the
issue of finanlisation of the National Postal Policy 2012 and asked them
to prepare roadmap for restructuring as well.
They said that next meeting on
the issue is expected to take place in 15 days. They said that the
minister, in June, had asked DoP to set up a body to oversee the
unbundling of its functions.
An independent body named Postal
Development Board (PDB) will be responsible for the overall development
and governance of the postal sector, they added. The PDB will also draw
a road-map for unbundling of postal department functions.
The minister had also instructed DoP to constitute a Postal Advisory Board (PAB), in line with Telecom Commission,
which should have representation from government, industry players,
academics and other stakeholders, they said. The role of PAB will be to
provide inputs to PDB on policy matters.
The government in 1997 created the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(Trai) to regulate the sector. Under New Telecom Policy 1999,
government further restructured DoT by separating service providing
function from it.
Source:-The Economic Times
