Almost all of the
government institutions are facing serious problems which have impacted their
public image and employee functioning. Below are some of the main ones which
are being faced by majority of them. Let me try to explain the same using
Postal Department as an analogy
1. Respect among
common public
2. Employee
satisfaction levels
3. Bad Policy
Matters
4. Loss of
Monopoly
5. Obselescence
6. Upholding of
legacy
7. Attrition
Respect among common public
The aura of
respect for an institution lies in hesitation to escalate and non-availability
of superior for a trivial matter. Take the case of postal department. For every
small issue, a customer at the counter barges into the room of the branch Post
Master (be it a two employee Post Office or a 50 employee Post Office) and the
Post Master is forced to intervene in every trivial issue. Instead of that, is
it not possible to insulate the Post Master from ordinary people? Is it not
possible to make a person to think twice before he thinks of speaking to a Post
Master? One simpler way is to introduce another layer in between the counter
staff and the post master and make that person handle everything. He can take
independent decisions or he can go back door to consult with his superior,
making the person before him to wait. As time progresses, the aura is
automatically built around the person. If he hesitates to reach out to the head
of a post office, what chance is that he will complain at a superior office?
Employee satisfaction levels
A few basic things
are missing in a government office - sincere appreciation, concern for
employee's personal problems and monetary remuneration. These things are not
major, but they make people happy. There is no harm in sending out a single
line mail saying 'Thank You for your contribution in ensuring that <>'
for the superior. But, for the employee, it matters much in motivating him to
work more. Next is the concept of personality development and stress busters.
Just a ten minute schedule during the office hours is sufficient to bring the
stress levels down. An in-house psychiatrist who will visit every office in the
division, say, monthly, will help in sorting out their problems. These things
don't cost much. Next comes the problems of monetary remunerations. There are
two aspects of it. Take the case of a meeting happening in the head office. If
no transport is provided for the employee by the management and if the employee
is forced to shell out money from his pocket for travel without any scope for
reimbursement or even if it exists, at a rate which is twenty years older, will
he be happy to attend the meeting and will he be in a position to contribute
productively in the meeting? The other aspect of it, do we sufficiently
recognize consistent high performers? Institution of awards and token
remunerations will help much in solving these problems. None of them is a big
matter in implementation, but will have a great effect on loyalty for the
employer.
Bad Policy Matters
Let me take some
specific examples for this.
a. For a layman,
there is no difference between a registered post and speed post. The difference
is that registered post is delivered to the person while speed post is
delivered at the address. Except in very rare cases, there is no difference
between both of them. Why confuse people by having two different services with
two different cost structures? Instead, why can't both be combined into a
single one thereby reducing the confusion and the wastage of money on printing
two different types of stationery?
b. Take the case
of Gold or Indian Rail tickets. The case may be that Post Offices are making
losses or profits, but it is a different matter. Instead of focusing on core
business and trying for increase in income through that, does it make any sense
to introduce new troubles for the employees? In case of gold coins, the post
master, beside his daily tensions, has to think of the security of the gold
coins. In case of train tickets, assuming the employee is getting a salary of
Rs 30,000 and the commission on each ticket is Rs 10, at least 3000 tickets
should be sold per month to get a return of investment. This is besides the
amount and effort spent in educating the employee, setting up the
infrastructure and educating the people of the existence of a reservation
counter in the post office.
c. Large areas
owned by the department are lying waste in the centre of many major cities.
Take for example, the land Postal Department owns near Kilpauk Medical College
in Chennai. Is it not an atrocious waste of resources? Can't the Postal
Department raise some shopping complexes on them and give them for lease?
d. What sense does
it make to have post offices in main cities which don't have a delivery
service?
Loss of Monopoly
The fact is that
it’s Postal Department which should grant licenses to courier operators, who
are their direct competitors. There is no proper approach to control their
encroachment. Either the department should take on the private service
providers either by reigning them in or by providing better services or move to
a different field altogether. A person is always bent on earning money whatever
the consequences. If there is a provision for hiding behind the law after
committing a mistake, he will always use it. Take an example. A small courier
firm has 100 letters to be posted from Chennai to Delhi. For every letter it
charges Rs 30. If they set up their own apparatus to move the letters, it will
cost them more. Instead, can they send these letters through post since the
departmental staff are blocked by law from opening a private parcel? If they do
that, assuming bulk booking provisions exist, they can send each letter at Rs
10, there by getting a profit of Rs 2000. But, in order to save more money, he
can pack the whole lot of letters in a single parcel and send it as book post.
It will cost no more than Rs 50, thereby increasing his profit to Rs 2900.
Though it is wrong to do that as he is sending commercial mail through book
post, he can hide behind the fact that Postal Department has got no right to
open mail in transit. If it is happening, the department will know of this loss
of revenue, but cannot do anything to tackle it. Instead, can the Postal
Department use anti-terrorism laws to check the contents of the parcel? Can
they argue that they doubted a bomb in the parcel and got it opened? Instead of
a bomb, they noticed a malpractice of sending loose letters in book post, and
action will be taken for this which will result in revocation of license? A
simple sorry for wasting police time would suffice. Innovative problems like this
require innovative solutions.
Obselescence
Many of the
policies of the Postal department are still rooted in the past and they are not
relevant to the current time. For example, let’s take two specific examples –
personal mail and small savings. How many of us are posting letters these days?
Does not making a call to inform what’s happening, or even, typing a mail make
us communicate faster? If yes, why are the post cards being printed till date?
If anyone wants to post a post card of a letter, can’t he simply use a private
envelope? There was a time when postal department used to have the best
interest rates compared with any banks in India. Now, the banks provide better
interest rates and instant withdrawl, albeit with a penalty. Do I have the same
provisions with a Postal Savings Account? If I have a current account in a
bank, these days, I am being provided with facilities like ATMs or Internet
Banking which means I can use my account money wherever and whenever I want.
But, if I go for a Postal Account, I will have to go to the Post Office where I
opened my account to withdraw the money. Is it not a hassle? Can a departmental
employee be blamed due to loss of revenue and patronization? Another point to
highlight is the obsolete rates. Look at the following snippet fromhttp://www.maharashtrapost.gov.in/htmldocs/postalchart.htm
taken on 28/09/2014. How are you going to collect 20 paise or 25 paise when the minimum legal
tender in itself is 50 paise? This actually, is a two sided problem – either
the information provided is obsolete or the rates provided are obsolete.
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7.
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Registered
Newspapers (single copy) |
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8.
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Registered
Newspapers
(more than one copy) |
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And,
actually looking at this specific instance, for a registered newspaper
bundle, the cost is 50 paise for the first 100 grams and 20 paise for every
hundred grams thereafter. Note that this
is applicable even after 20 paise is demonetized in India. An average newspaper
has a quality 50 GSM and 6 A2 papers(420x540 mm). This brings it’s weight to
about 11.5 grams per sheet or 68 grams per newspaper. Assuming 5000 newspapers
are posted, the total parcel charges amount to Rs 680 or 13 paise per
newspaper. Now, even if the cost of a newspaper is 1.50 rupee, we can see the
margin postal department is getting. Postal Department may be termed as a service
department. But, service to a private businessman?
Upholding of legacy
Postal History, mainly that of stationery and stamps, like anything else,
even from the times of Colonial Past, is a part of national heritage. There are some very
major landmarks in the international philately which emanated in India. Some of
them include –
1.
British India is the first political entity in all Asia
which issued a postage stamp
2.
Bhor is the first political entity in the world which
issued an oval stamp
3.
Hyderabad is the first postal entity in the world which
issued a stamp containing four different scripts.
4.
Excluding Ottoman Sultanate, Junagadh is the first
Islamic state which issued postal stamps.
In this regard, below are a fewpertinent questions to ask
–
1.
Does the postal department have the details of each and
every stamp issued in the physical area enclosed by India, be it issued by
British/French/Portuguese India or the Princeley States or Independent India
along with the details of their publication? Does India Post maintain an
authoritative catalogue of all the stamps issued in India?
2.
Do we know on what dates each of the princely state posts
shutdown formally? If we know it, why is the information not in public domain?
3.
Why is Stanley Gibbons, a British firm and not the Indian
Philatelic Bureau treated as the best authority over Indian Philately?
4.
Does the Indian Government/Postal Department hold a
repository of all the stamps and other postal stationery issued in India? This
can include postage stamps, postcards and envelopes, post office cancellations
and anything such. For example, the first stamp issued by the state of Bundi
costs around Rs 25-30 lakhs in open market. How many stamps of this elusive
piece does Indian Philatelic Bureau hold?
If not, is it not the responsibility of the Department to
maintain such?
Attrition
This is not a
problem only with the Postal department, but with many of the government sector
entities. Current scenario is something as below –
1.
An aspirant clears a departmental entrance test and is appointed in a
mid-level post.
2.
The department spends money on her training and grooms him to be a
competitive employee
3.
Parallel to this, unknown to his masters, the employee prepares for a
better job, be it in government sector(say Civil Services) or in private
sector(say some IT job) and quits the job.
This scenario is
visible in every department in India, be it a public sector enterprise or a
private one. Is there any answer to this wastage of resources?
Keeping all these
in views, there are some fundamental changes to be made in the way the
department works –
1.
Create an aura of superiority against a branch supervisor
2.
There should be a provision to source Business and Design architects at the
market rates and as lateral entrants who will decide what should be done. To
avoid stagnation in their mode of working, they can probably be moved across
multiple government departments. It is your department which should come up
with ideas to revitalize the business and not any other entity which sell you
ideas for their sustenance. To ensure they do not succumb to third party
pressure, a panel involving financial audit can be created across departments
to monitor every proposal they forward.
3.
Try to be relevant and be updated with the happenings in the world. If revenue
due to personal mail is taking a hit, bring in provisions like
a. State Post should be the only
carrier of government transactions unless it’s a departmental courier
b. Automated stamp/stationery
vending machines
c. Expand online business and
e-banking/e-savings.
d. Bring in card based payments
in the post offices
e. Shed out all the unwanted
businesses which are either diverting attention (like selling gold) or can be
pruned (speed post-registered post tussle)
f. Expand the presence into
warehouse stock movement. That market will always be present and try to
increase your share of business there.
g. Introduce concepts like the
postman will come and collect the letters you want to post at your house
itself, at a cost slightly higher than what he pays if he comes to the post office.
The payment will be just electronic.
h. Take the case of personalized
postage stamps. Split it into three types – stamps for marriage, stamps for
other occasions and individual stamps. Give contracts to private agents to
collect the forms and deposit the form and money at the post office. For
individual stamps, concentrate on tourist places and schools.
4.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel when there are at least some
countries which have a better postal management than us. Get in touch with
India’s diplomatic missions to identify, say, the best five postal systems of
the world. Send a delegation comprising of business analysts and design
analysts to get the crux of their business models and amalgamate/adapt those
which can fit into Indian model. Use the same to design a better software for
internal/external use
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