India-Post 2010
Conference on harnessing the outreach infrastructure of India's Postal Network
12 and 13 November 2002, Le Meridien Hotel, New Delhi, India

Over 16 billion mail items and 110 million money orders per year and administers over 114 million savings accounts a reflection of its extensive experience with high-criticality transactions. While most people are familiar with the conventional role of India Post, it is possible to conceive of many new roles that this vast and credible infrastructure can perform in the Indian economy and for the benefit of the Indian population.

With the objective of facilitating a deeper examination of the potential applications for the outreach infrastructure of India 's postal network, India Post, The World Bank and Invest India Economic Foundation (IIEF) jointly sponsored an international conference titled 'India-Post 2010' on 12 and 13 November 2002 at New Delhi.

An important objective of this conference was to provide a platform to policymakers from central and state governments and departments as well as senior practitioners and independent experts to discuss the potential uses of the Indian postal network. Domestic and international experts participated in this conference and made a number of presentations dealing with specific reforms, improvements, changes and related implementation issues at this conference. Senior representatives from government departments, regulators, private sector, academic and research institutes and development agencies participated in this conference.

Some of the new roles and applications discussed in the conference included:
a) Payments system functions: Today, around 2000 post offices are electronically connected and have the ability to move funds in real-time across all 550 districts in India. This capacity is set to grow to 3000 locations in the next two years. In the future, we can envision a role for India Post as a provider of payments system functions in the economy. Some pilot efforts have already begun to utilize this funds transfer capacity on the securities markets.

b) E-governance functions: Post offices are extremely well dispersed throughout the country. They have a significant degree of trust and legitimacy as State apparatus. It may be possible to utilize post offices as front-ends through which citizens interface with the State for a wide variety of functions, ranging from access to land records, passport issuance, payments of bills and taxes, etc. This fits well with an e-governance framework, where the core processes of the State are driven by IT systems. In such a vision, post offices across the country can grow into cybercafes with Internet access, with mechanisms for verification of identity, and then function as front-ends to the IT systems that are built by various States and Central Government agencies.

c) Front-end for the financial sector: In similar fashion, post offices can become a front-end for the financial sector