India Post - The Chance to Make Itself Indispensible
There has been a lot off buzz when India Post collected Rs 280 crores through Cash On Delivery (COD) for e-commerce firms in the last year. While this surely something to crow about, this is just a small drop in the ocean. However this perhaps assumes much more significance on the way forward for the organization. To give an introduction - India Post has about 1.55+ lakh post offices of which 90% are in the rural areas, making it the world's largest postal network. On an average, a post office serves 21.21 sq. km area and about 7,175 people. It also has cash handling services like core banking solutions, money transfer and a robust account system. Apart from this it has insurance and other services. India is at the cusp of the ecommerce wave. The e-commerce business in India was about $ 6 billion (approx. Rs. 37,344 crores) in 2012 and is expected to touch $76 billion (roughly Rs. 4,73,024 crores) by 2021 of which distribution, delivery and logistics constitutes around 12 per...