TS Postal Circle inaugurated by M.Venkaiah Naidu

Union Minister for Urban Development, Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated Telangana Postal Circle at Ravindra Bharati Auditorium on Monday. Union Ministers Manoj Sinha and Bandaru Dattatreya were present. On the occasion, Naidu said India had the largest postal network in the world with 1,54,939 post offices of which 1,39,222 (almost 90 per cent) were in rural areas. At the time of Independence, there were 23,344 post offices, mostly in urban areas, he said, adding that undivided Andhra Pradesh Postal Circle had 16,155 post offices as on March 31, 2015, and it had 47,831 letter boxes of which 39,977 were in rural areas and 7,854 in urban areas. 

The Union Minister said the post office has always been at the forefront of financial inclusion in India. Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) had a customer base of 33.03 crore as on March 31, 2015. There has been a sharp increase in it due to the welfare schemes. Naidu said this year marks the introduction of 250th year of introduction of regular postal system in India by Lord Clive in 1766. But it was not before the Post Office Act, 1854, that it was organised on all-India basis.

The Postal Department has rolled out Banking Solution (CBS) in 9,583 post offices and ATMs have been installed at 125 locations; debit cards have been issued to Post Office Savings Bank customers. Money remittance service to customers in India from around 195 countries on a real-time basis is being operated in association with Western Union and Money Gram from 9,943 and 6,070 locations, respectively.

Therefore,



Andhra Pradesh Postal Circle was required to be divided into two Postal Circles – Andhra Pradesh Postal Circle and Telangana Postal Circle. The Telangana Postal Circle will have 10 revenue districts co-terminus with the Telangana State,” he said. “In the unified Andhra Pradesh Postal Circle, there were five postal regions – Hyderabad City, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam. After creation of Telangana Postal Circle, Hyderabad City and Hyderabad regions have become part of this circle covering 10 revenue districts. Khammam, Vijayawada, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam regions are part of the residual The Telangana Postal Circle was playing a major role in ensuring financial inclusion. On an average, 17.7 lakh Social Security pensions were disbursed amounting Rs 210 crore every month. 

“The Department of Posts is pursuing the financial inclusion agenda of the government and bringing in technology to bridge the digital divide in the form of Rural ICT, which will help rural people to have state-of-the-art IT-enabled services without moving to neighbouring towns. The department is given the licence for setting up of Payment Bank and 650 bank branches will be made operational by September 2017 across India. All departmental post offices will have the facility of payment bank transactions for the public. The Department of Posts is pursuing the Prime Minister schemes of Atal Pension Yojana (APY), Prime Minister Jan Jeevan Beema Yojana (PMJJBY), Prime Minister Suraksha Beema Yojana (PMSBY) and Sukanya Samriddhi Account (SSA),” Venkaiah Naidu added.