The Points stressed in the
meeting held on 01.10.2012 with the Secretary and Postal Board Members on
the revised postal board policy 2012 by
the Secretary General and General Secretaries of NFPE is recorded in a form of
letter addressed to Postal Board. The letter is reproduced here under for the
consumption of all viewers.
NATIONAL FEDERATION
OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES
(Central Heads Quarters)
1st Floor, North
Avenue Post office, New Delhi – 110001
Ref: NFPE/NPP 2012/GENL/2012 Dated 01.10.2012
To
Mrs. Suneetha Trivedi
Member (Planning)
Postal Services Board
Dak Bhawan, New Delhi
– 110001
Madam,
Sub: - Discussion on
National Postal Policy 2012.
Ref: - (i) Your DO
No. 27-69/2011 dated 18.09.2012
(ii) Meeting
held at Dak Bhawan on 01.10.2012
Kindly refer to the proceedings
of the meeting held at Dak Bhawan under the Chairpersonship of Secretary,
Department of Posts on 01.10.2012, on the above subject. The viewpoints
expressed by the NFPE and its affiliated unions on the specific issues of
unbundling of functions and introduction of an independent regulator for Indian
Postal market is summarized below:
(a) Theory of level playing field and its
negative impact in the Indian situation
In the National Postal Policy 2012
it is stated that it is essential to allow free interplay of market forces and
consequent stabilization of the Postal market. This means opening up of entry
in the Postal market for national/international courier companies by granting
licence for which amendment to the Indian Post office Act 1898 is a must.
In India more than 70% of the
population lives in rural villages and the Department of Posts is the sole
service provider in the rural areas, through it’s a vast network of more than 1,55000
post offices. It is an admitted fact that, even now couriers are not providing
postal services in the rural areas. On getting licence they will restrict their
area of operation to the metro cities/cities and shall capture a major share of
Postal sector revenue. About 70% of the revenue of India Post is from metro
cities/cities. The remaining rural villages where 70% of the population resides
is contributing less than 30% of the revenue earned by India Post.
If competition is allowed, it
will never be a fair competition in a level playing field. Aggressive
competition will take place in the profit making city areas and vast majority of
the loss making rural areas will be left to the India Post. This will result in
further increasing the loss incurred by the Postal Department and will lead to
the natural death of the India Post within a short span of time as the slogan
is – “survival of the fittest.”
The experience in the telecom
sector clearly manifested that the private telecom operators never cared to
provide landline connections in the rural areas, inspite of inclusion of a
separate clause to this effect in the licences granted to them, instead they
opted to pay the meagre amount of fine imposed on them for violation of the
compulsory clause of provision of rural landline connections. The Government
and the regulator has always taken a lenient view towards private operators. In
the Postal also the same thing will happen.
(b) Amendment to the Indian Post office Act 1898
We do agree that many of the
clauses of the Indian Post office Act 1898 has become obsolete and many changes
are to be incorporated therein, especially in the context of induction of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Postal Services. But the
amendment envisaged in the National Postal Policy 2012 is quite unwarranted. By
amending the Act, the Government want to end the monopoly of the Department of
Posts in collection, processing, conveyance and delivery of letter mail
articles. This is mainly to facilitate entry of the private courier companies
to compete in the letter mail sector.
Earlier also Government has
brought a bill called “Indian Post office Act Amendment bill” in the Parliament
for this purpose. The bill was referred to the Standing committee of Ministry
of Communications and IT. The Committee after hearing all the stake holders
including the courier companies had given its report in which it was clearly
recommended that the exclusive privilege of collection, processing, conveyance
and delivery of letter mail articles should remain with the Postal itself. This
being the position the present move to again bring an amendment is against
interest of the people at large and the customers in particular. It is
pertinent to mention that in many foreign countries, the exclusive privileges
of letter mail is being preserved with the Government function and the existing
right shall not be removed at any cost.
(c) Road map to privatisation
Government of India
wants to open or liberalise the Indian Postal Sector for providing unhindered
entry of the private sector. In the long run, the Government may withdraw from
its responsibility to provide postal services to the public through Govt. owned
Department of Posts. The ultimate aim and hidden agenda of the National Postal
Policy 2012 is to give maximum patronage to the private sector and the “public-private
partnership”, “unbundling of functions” etc are mainly intended for achieving
this goal.
In the telecom, the government
refused to grant permission to the Government owned BSNL for providing the
value added cellular mobile services in India .
Licences were granted to all other private cellular mobile companies and they
charged exhorbitant rates for incoming and outgoing calls. Only after six
years, that too after prolonged struggle by the BSNL employees and due to
mounting public opinion, the Government reluctantly granted licence to BSNL
also. If this can happen in Telecom, one can very well imagine what will be
attitude of the Government and the fate of Department of Posts.
(d) We oppose the neo-liberal
reforms
NFPE as an organisation of the Postal
employees has been fighting against the neo-liberal globalization policies of
the Government of India from 1991 onwards. When many countries where this
reforms are implemented are reverting back, we are at a loss to understand why
Government of India is going ahead with the reforms in the Indian Postal Sector.
In fact, in the preamble of the draft National Postal Policy itself it is
admitted that – “though the principle of separation of regulator and operator
is widely discussed, it is yet to find universal acceptance”
In the above circumstances going ahead
with the institutional reforms such as unbundling of functions i.e.; operation,
regulation and policy making in the Postal Sector will be suicidal. We strongly
oppose unbundling and setting up of separate regulator.
(e) Department of Posts can
itself regulate the Postal market in India
Instead of creating a separate regulator,
the Department of Post itself can regulate the Postal market by framing
necessary rules and by increasing the power of the Postal Board and at the same
time keeping its monopoly over the letter mail.
In view of the above NFPE demands
the Government of India and the Postal Administration to desist from any move
to unbundle the functions and also from the move to appoint separate regular
for Indian Postal market.
Yours faithfully,
(M. Krishnan)
Secretary General, NFPE
