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
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