The Indian Post and Telegraph Department provides various postal services across India. For providing these services, the whole country has been divided into 22 postal circles. These circles manage the day-to-day functioning of the various head post offices, sub-post offices and branch post offices. Through their regional and divisional level arrangements, the various facilities provided by the postal department are broadly categorised into :
1.Financial facilities : These facilities are provided through the post office’s savings schemes like Public Provident Fund (PPF), Kisan Vikas Patra and National Saving Certificates in addition to normal retail banking functions of monthly income schemes, recurring deposits, savings account, time deposits and money order facility.
2.Mail facilities : Mail services consist of parcel facilities i.e. transmission of articles from one place to another, registration facility to provide security of the transmitted articles and insurance facility to provide insurance cover for all risks in the course of transmission by post.
3.Allied Postal Services: The postal department also offers the following allied facilities :
(i)Media Post: Business enterprises can advertise their brands through postcards, envelops, etc.
(ii)Greeting Post : Greeting cards can be sent through post offices to people on different occasions.
(iii)Speed Post: It facilitates speedy transmission of articles to over 1,000 destinations in India and 97 major countries across the globe.
(iv)Direct Post : Direct advertising can be done through addressed and unaddressed direct post.
(v)E-Bill Post: Post offices collect bill payments on behalf of BSNL, Airtel and other organisations.
(vi)Passport Facilities: The Postal department has entered into partnership with the Ministry of external affairs. As a result, post offices provide passport application forms and also accept filled up forms.
(vii)International Money Transfer : The Postal department has collaborated with Western Union financial services, USA, for remittance of money from 185 countries to India.