Postal Services

The Indian Post and Telegraph Department provides various postal services across India. For this, the country is divided into 22 postal circles, which manage the day-to-day working of the head post offices, sub-post offices and branch post offices. The facilities are broadly of two categories, plus a set of allied services.

• Financial facilities — offered through post-office savings schemes such as the Public Provident Fund (PPF), Kisan Vikas Patra and National Saving Certificates, in addition to normal retail-banking functions like monthly income schemes, recurring deposits, savings accounts, time deposits and the money-order facility.
• Mail facilities — consisting of:
  • Parcel — transmission of articles from one place to another.
  • Registration — to give security to the transmitted articles.
  • Insurance — to provide cover for all risks while articles are in transmission by post.

Allied facilities offered by the postal department

1. Greeting post — a range of greeting cards for every occasion.
2. Media post — a vehicle for Indian corporates to advertise their brand through postcards, envelopes, aerograms, telegrams and letterboxes.
3. Direct post — for direct advertising; can be either addressed or unaddressed.
4. International Money Transfer — in collaboration with Western Union Financial Services (USA), enabling remittance of money from 185 countries to India. …