Core banking in post office- India

India Post- the name and logo may be strange for new generation but the older generation communicated and shared ideas through the Department of Post. There are more than 1.5lakh post offices all over India in which majority (around 90%) of them are in rural areas. Compared to the nationalized banks the number of branches and accounts are higher in post offices because there will be a post office in the heart of a village. Gandhi once said India’s heart lies in the villages, now in the case of post offices it’s a fact.  Post offices all over India are going to have a great change and development through the implementation of core banking. Once core banking service is enabled in post offices the economic growth of our nation will rise.

Implementation of core banking is stagnant due to many reasons

• ·         Uninterrupted power supply- When there is a power failure, offices might not have generators, or the existing one might be out of order since years. Working hours cannot be utilized efficiently in completing the works. Functioning affects not only the small savings scheme transactions, customers cannot avail the services of registered post, speed post, iMO(instant money order), eMO(e-money order), MMR(mobile money remittance) etc.

• ·         Lack of UPS- There will not be back up for the data

• No Upgraded servers- Local area network will not function properly. Computers are still running in expired Operating system windows XP.

• ·         No System administrators who are qualified and efficient

Every year thousands of crores are allocated for IT modernization in Post offices but where does the fund vanish or why the funds are not utilized in proper manner. When tenders are called officials choose the least amount and what happens later, the machine will stop functioning within one year of purchase and they may not have warranty also. So the device will stay there for years and years without functioning-loss of money, energy and space.

Even after deciding to implement Core banking system, the government has not decided to create a new cadre for system administrator. At present, the procedure for appointing system administrator – if any postal assistant is interested in becoming system administrator without giving any training they will be appointed. System administrators do not have sound knowledge of programming language and software used. In case an issue arise, either there will be no system administrator or will have to contact the person who developed the particular software.

Sub Post Masters working in the offices are also not given proper training about the software. They do not know what the options are or how the software is to be used. When versions are upgraded, they become more confused in handling. Some sub post masters find ways for self learning but in most of the cases it is not easy in between their busy daily schedule.

To say about the pending works in post offices- post office functioning is entirely different from banks. If a transaction is made on a particular day, the transaction will be verified by the head office after few days or weeks or even months sometimes. Inadequate number of staffs in head offices led to the pending of works. The funniest thing is in some postal divisions recurring deposit transactions are not verified by anyone. Agreement work has been pending since 20 years. Nationalized banks, public sector banks and private post their interest on March 31 or April 1 of the current year but in case of post office it takes few more months. Employees consider the banking in post offices as a government job rather than dealing seriously. Employees are not developed to become bank employees; they are still government employees only.

Preservation and weeding out of old records

In postal accounts savings manual preservation period of vouchers and LOT’s are mentioned clearly but the problem is lack of space to store them. Vouchers are dumped in huge sacs instead of arranging according to years. Weeding out of recurring deposits vouchers is not possible without taking agreements. If a top official ask you to find some old vouchers it become a tedious task.

Credibility of post offices is falling due to inefficient administration and improper functioning leading to the lag of core banking implementation.  Customers will not show the patience to wait for long when you can get it done within few minutes in other banks.