SANCHAY POST SOFTWARE IS LIKELY TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN 6000 POST OFFICES MORE

Newsitem published in Times of India Bangalore dated 6.11.2009

BANGALORE: IT city is stepping on the gas — it is now at the heart of India’s post-office revolution. Software product ‘Sanchay Post’, designed by engineers of Bangalore-based Datanet Systems, is transforming the gargantuan Indian postal system into a more secure and tech-savvy savings hub, as good as any modern bank, making life easier for thousands of families who swear by postal savings.

Software Sanchay Post is doing what customers have sought for long — computerized post offices. By March 2010, 16,000 post offices across the country will offer computerized postal services that are highly secure, transparent and quick. The services will be available at main post offices in the first phase.

G H Visveswara, CEO of Datanet Systems, said: “India Post has computerized 9,500 post offices so far. The plan is to computerize 6,000 more this year. By March 2010, with 16,000 computerized post offices, the post office will be India’s largest computerized banking system. We are happy Sanchay Post is at the middle of this postal transformation, and more so because it is helping the common man who reposes faith in the post office.”

WHEN DID IT START?

The postal department started its computerization plans around 1998-99, and Datanet Systems was selected through a tender. Around 2000, when the first version of the software was released, 184 post offices had been computerized. Between 2000 and 2007, only 480 post offices had been computerized as the postal department “was going slow”.

An unprecedented change, however, took place after March 2007 “owing to persuasion by CAG that all operations be computerized”. Between March 2007 and October 2009, computerized branches increased from 480 to a whopping 10,000. With 6,000 more planned by March 2010, the Indian postal department is now doing what no limited banking institution in the country has ever done: computerizing 16,000 branches in three years flat, from March 2007 to 2010.

Feedback from post offices to the new software and computerization has been positive. “India Post’s plan to computerize 6,000 branches more with the software is testimony that it has been working well for them. If it was not, such a major decision on such a large scale would not be taken place,” Visveswara said.