SLP to provide techno-savvy services

By Mohammed NAALIR

The Government has laid a strong foundation to rebuild the postal service with the assistance of the Treasury. The only productive means to develop the postal service is to penetrate other markets without depending on a few services.

Sri Lanka Post (SLP) will provide various types of services such as; mail and logistic insurance, email to postal and postal to email, postal shopping, video calling, Utility-bill and demand payment, address verification, mail forward, virtual user, mail holding and regional, virtual fax, philatelic, scangram and system administration services.

The mail and logistic service will be reliable. In case of any loss or damage caused to the customer, he will be offered another package of bulk mails. Virtual fax services will be more profitable to business institutions which receive a nominal number of fax messages each month. It will minimise the cost of maintaining a separate fax line. A business institution or a customer willing to obtain this service must register with the Department of Post (DOP). Then the DOP will provide a fax number.

The SLP will introduce eMoney order system shortly. Even though money order is the key income source of SLP it very outdated. The demand payment will allow customers to make payments to entities, who accept payments for various tasks through money orders in existing system.

SLP has a history of over 200 years. Since its inception it has been serving the cities and the slums. Captain A Kennedy, was the Postmaster General in the then Ceylon in 1798. During his regime five post offices were set up in Colombo, Galle, Mannar, Jaffna and Trincomalee.

SLP is the primary communication mode of people in remote villages, even now. The postal service must be improved to meet the growing demand that has arisen due to globalisation.

Providing limited number of services is not sufficient to meet the demand in a commercially globalised world.

At present, there are over 22,000 employees in the Postal Department. It operates an islandwide service with a view to providing an efficient and effective service to customers, SLP is planning to use technology and cater to modern day needs. Delivery of letters and parcels, cancellation of stamps and issue of post cards were the services provided by post offices.

It is envisaged that post offices will be developed with modern communication facilities.

There are 644 main post offices, 3,408 sub post offices, 499 agency, 159 rural agency, 58 estate agency post offices throughout the country. The main post offices countrywide are being networked with the help of the University of Moratuwa. It is nearing completion.

According to Postal Services Minister, Jeewan Kumaratunga, networking of post offices was started two years ago. Now the time has arisen to profit from the venture. The SLP which was considered as a traditional service provider has turned into a giant in the telecommunication market.

The Minister expressed confidence that the Government, semi Government institutions and business institutions will immensely benefit from the diversified services.

The SLP is preparing to expand its service introducing services available in the private sector via post offices , according to Hemasiri Fernando, Secretary of Ministry of Postal Services.

Deputy Postmaster General K.S. Senadeera said that for the past few decades the postal service has lagged behind due to the introduction of modern technology in communication in the private sector.

Postal Department is one of the closest organisations to the public.

Potential areas of service are, booking of hotels and guest house and medical booking, e-ticketing for buses and trains, e-auctioning service, mail marketing, application processing, acceptance services and classified advertisements. These services will be available online.

Philatelic service; many services can be provided to stamp collectors. First day covers, old and new stamps, different types of stamp albums, stamp handling equipment and other items of interest to philatelic collectors can be displayed on the website.

Philatelic services will be provided the facility to maintain the innovatory of all stamps and philatelic items with very valuable information.

A Prepaid account will be a good alternative for the credit card. The Prepaid account is a very simple concept. The rural community face difficulties to obtain credit cards. Any customer can create his own prepaid account visiting the nearest post office. The account can be used for any transaction at anytime.

Mail forwarding will be important to people who live in rented or leased houses and shift from place to place frequently. Under this concept, the SLP will deliver all mail correspondence to the new address.

Scangram will be effective when compared to the telegram service. The scangram will eliminate problems prevailing in the telegram system. The customer who is willing to send a telegram will have to fill in the form and write the message on the form. This will be scanned and sent to the relevant post office to be delivered to the relevant customer.

Address verification; proof address is a must for many post paid services. In several cases the customers face the difficulty of providing newly dated bank statements. SL Post will provide an online address verification. Once registered, the organisation can log into the system and get the address verified. Individuals as well as corporate organisations will benefit. The customer need not provide billing proof, instead he must submit the verifying address.