FROM BUSINESS WORLD OF 29 APRIL 2006
Revitalizing the post office
In my column in
March, I had written that the government should allow competition in last-mile
postal service – that it should call for bids for postal delivery to a
particular area for one year at a time, and give the contract to the lowest
bidder. I think my idea is excellent, but for that very reason it would not
appeal to the government. It believes that the better should not become the
enemy of the good, so it always looks for a worse option. So this time I will
suggest less-than-ideal options.
The post office
has been losing mail to couriers. Nowadays, even India International Centre, which
was once the bastion of retired civil servants, sends its programmes to members
by courier. On the other hand, my friend Bhupa Dalal, who has figured earlier
in this column, is the only interlocutor who writes me post cards. And I can
certify that the post cards are a perfect service – they reach me next day from
Bombay without fail. The post office does not guarantee their delivery. But it
has two other services that do, more or less – registration and certification.
I would
therefore suggest that the post office should offer couriers – and only
couriers – a guaranteed quick delivery service. Just now, couriers have to ship
their packages by air; only the post office has a monopoly in the use of
trains. Hence its costs are much lower. It can charge three times what it is
charging just now, and yet it would save couriers money to use the post office
instead of making their own arrangements. They would also be able to deliver in
remote places where it is too much trouble to send a messenger. They would be
concerned that the post office would not be as reliable as themselves. To
reassure them, it should insure them against non-delivery or late delivery –
let us, say, refund of twice the charge for late delivery, and Rs 10,000 a
package for non-delivery. They can pass on this insurance to their customers. In
this way, the post office would cream off some of the couriers’ profits, and the
couriers would make even bigger profits. The entire delivery industry would
become more efficient; that increase in efficiency can be used to leave both
the post office and the couriers better off.
Couriers are not
the only people whom the post office can offer services; they can offer new
services to their own customers. Postmen should be given laptops with wireless
connections and little printers. As they go their rounds, they should deliver
e-mails to people who do not have access to them, and e-mail their messages.
They should be given distinctive uniforms (actually, they are given money for
two new uniforms a year, but they blow it up on more covetable objects). After
delivering letters every day, they should set themselves up in a prominent place
and dispense postal goods and services, as well as of others who are prepared
to pay the post office for the service. They may, for instance, carry a cell
phone and act as a mobile public call office.
Postmen
collectively know by face a higher proportion of India’s population than any
other institution. They should find uses for that knowledge. They should, for
instance, give everyone a unique identity number. We would then no longer have
to write addresses on letters. Even if you did not know where our girl friend
of last year was, the post office would deliver a love letter to her. The
Election Commission and the Income Tax Department would no longer have to give
their own identity cards to everyone they deal with; the post office ID would
suffice. If a garment manufacturer wanted to locate all females over 6 feet,
the post office would do it for him.
If the post
office were to offer right-on-time letter delivery service to couriers, it
would have to ensure that mail trains would run on time. It should buy off mail
trains, and make a binding agreement with the railways whereby mail trains
would have priority over all other trains. The post office would then be able
to offer to deliver not just packages but also humans on time. To timeliness it
should add luxury; it should offer a first class that would surpass the best
airline, and charge appropriately high fares. It would make such profits that
it could afford to pay the railways something for giving mails priority; both
government departments would be better off.
These are what
business would call win-win solutions. They are out-of-the-box solutions, which
the Prime Minister is fond of – in principle. He should sometimes practise what
he believes.
