Looking for a new postcode

The need to bring the postal service to the 21st century and make it more efficient:

by Raja Wickramasinghe

With a record Rs 2 million loss and a Rs 1.5 million boost to develop its services, the Postal Department has been in the news the past few months, brining additional focus to the Asia- Pacific Postal Union Ex. Com. meeting held in Colombo last September. The meeting raised a great deal of hope in the minds of Sri Lankans looking for an efficient Postal Service with modern services, such as HYBRID MAIL and E-COM. Identifying the need, the Postmaster General is quoted in the mainstream media as saying that the Postal Department intends introducing modern services and making it profitable. He had citied extension of the COURIER SERVICE out of Colombo as one of the measures.

These are all Mail Services. The HYBRID MAIL, and E-COM, short for Electronic Computer Originate Mail, are electronically originated and electronically transmitted. But after reaching a point halfway (Post office), it has to be printed, and sent by the normal mail in the form of a traditional letter to the Office of delivery, and delivered to the addressee. However, the indication is that the Postal Department has at last decided to shift back to its core business (Mail Business). It is really a very positive step in the right direction.

During the last two decades the Postal Department completely neglected the Mail Business and embarked on a fruitless journey of chasing behind financial services, and other agency services. These services earned only a small fraction of the total income. The other area was the project of installing communication centres in the Post offices. According to its website there were as many as 125 of them by 2005. It was only a replicating of the communication centres, run by private individuals. The Postal Department spent a lot of money on them and ended up incurring losses. The consequences of them can now be seen in the loss of billions of Rupees annually.

Main line of business

The Mail is the main line of its business and the major revenue earner. It has committed almost one third of its entire Human resources and a major part of other Physical and financial resources to the Mail business. The Financial services and Others (agency services) earn only a small fraction of its revenue. It is same in all Postal Services in the world. This is clearly evident by the postal statistics for 2013 published by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), with a membership of 192 countries, including Sri Lanka. Accordingly the revenue earned by Mail Business (Letter and Parcel mail) in the Asia - Pacific Region (our region) was 64.6% against 14% and 21.4% by the Financial services and the Others, respectively.

This is much better explained by the revenue earned by the Industrialised countries, which are supposed to use the most modern communication methods compared to the traditional Mail services. Their Mail Business revenue was 79.1%, against, 3.9% and 17% by the other two lines of business. The Industrialised countries have a more impressive record of having a per capita number of letters posted at 289 in 2013, when we are having only 10, in our Asia – pacific region. This shows the extent to which the Mail business can be developed.

It was their efficient and reliable mail services and innovative new services that made it possible to achieved this feat. Services such as HYBRID MAIL and E-COM (Electronic Computer Originated Mail) were introduced. They were able to attract the Business / Advertising mail. The Services such as Direct mail, Addressed and Un-Addressed Mail, questioners in relation to various market surveys etc, and other advertising material used the postal mail services in those countries. This has helped them to increase the mail volume to the level it has reached today. The opportunity is there for the Sri Lanka Post to do the same. We have a good business environment. But the Sri Lanka Post is far, far behind in this. There is no reason, other than its inefficient and unreliable mail service, that prevents it.

The Sri Lanka Post needs to develop and improve the Mail Operations and thereby making the Mail Service an efficient and a reliable service, which would attract numerous segments of customers. Its aim should be to increase the mail volume. It was the private/social mail that eroded, since 1990s. Business mail is still there to grab. A good example is the industrialized countries, which achieved a massive Letter posting rate of 289 per person in 2013. The social and economic impact of an efficient and reliable Mail service deserves serious public attention.

New Postcode

In this regard, as a preliminary step of improving the Mail Operations, I would suggest to the PMG to take into consideration the introduction of a new Postcode. The Postcode introduced in 1997 was an utter failure, ending up designing only a place identifier instead of a postcode. Now for over 17 years, unable to use, is being kept in cold storage. It can never be implemented, as it has been designed in conflict with the existing Mail Operations system. The way the Postcode has been designed, provides an excellent example of the amount of knowledge the designers had in mail operations system of the Sri Lanka Post.

My suggestion of introducing a new Postcode is based purely on solid facts.

(1) Its benefits in the Mail Operations. The Postcode enables you to bypass a number of primary sorting stages; thereby it reduces the cost and time. It speeds up the whole process from collection to delivery of mail. It reduces the operational costs. Its impact in Mail operations would be very high.

(2) Its many non Postal, national uses. It is used as a useful l tool for non-postal purposes, and is used in host of activities in the fields of government administration, economic, Business and commerce, Navigational, Social, by the institutions for statistical and Mapping purposes, and many other government and private agencies.

(3) Its wide usage by the world Postal services. The Postcode is used by nearly seventy five percent (75%) of the postal services in the world.

National need

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) records show that 142 of its 192 member countries use the Postcode by the end of the year 2013. In the Asian-Pacific region, of the 32 member countries only 06, including Sri Lanka do not use the Postcode. All the eight SAARC countries, except Sri Lanka use it

(4) The SLP has a well organised Mail Sorting and Routing system. It can be easily implemented in the existing mail sorting and routing system, at a very low coast in a relatively short time. In this sense, Postcode has a wide range of national uses, and should be considered as a national need rather than a need of a single institution for a limited purpose.

Designing a proper Postcode won’t be a hurricane task as somebody may try to make it to be. It could be done with ease. The present mood of the Sri Lankan people needing change is the most opportune time to embark on a project of such national importance .Therefore I do not wish to, make the suggestion and remain silent. I am already at it, constructing a suitable model and a structure to design a proper Postcode which can be implemented in the Sri Lanka Post’s Mail Operations system. It will be forwarded to the PMG in due course, with sufficient information to assess its feasibility and suitability for adoption in the SLP; I hope it will receive the PMG’s due consideration and response.

I am sure there are some officers with good knowledge in Mail Operations, who can develop on it to design a suitable Postcode for the Sri Lanka Post and the country. Although I am at present far away in distance, the modern ways of communication would make the distance irrelevant and I can, and will, be of assistance to them, am always happy to.

(The writer is a retired - Deputy Postmaster General, now living in Canada.)